Shrinkage
| No. of Players: | 1+ |
| Type of Game: | written |
| What you need: | pen and paper |
Goal
To reduce a word to a single letter by removing or substituting letters.
How to play
Players choose a word at random. This can be accomplished by opening a book to a random page and selecting the fifth word on that page. After this word is written down, the first player either removes a letter, or substitutes one letter for another, to form a new word. The next player does the same and so on, until players reach a one-letter word like A or I. In which case all players are declared winners. Otherwise, the last player to have successfully formed a new word is the winner.
Example
Amanda and Bob randomly select the word HOUSES by opening a newspaper to a middle page and writing down the first word of the first headline on that page. They flip a coin to see who gets to go first. Amanda wins, so she removes U to make HOSES. Here is how the first round played out:
HOUSES
HOSES
HOSE
HONE
ONE
ON
IN
I
Since Amanda and Bob shrunk the starting word down to a one-letter word, they declared themselves both winners.
