How to Make Your Own College Drinking Game

Drinking games are everywhere. Ever since college kids began drinking in earnest, probably around the time kids started going to college, drinking games have given them excuses to sit in circles, watching their favorite movies, or playing their favorite quarter hopping games and getting incredibly drunk. There’s no shortage of these games, literally thousands litter the internet, freely available to the masses of college drinkers. But, for those that truly enjoy a good “drink when you hear a door close” game, half the fun is making up the rules.

There are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind when putting together your own college drinking game though. It’s not as simple as making a huge list of things that make everyone drink. That’s boring, and can be overwhelming. No, you’ll want to be creative, think of some good rules, and make the game as interactive as possible.

First off, don’t make up the rules as you go. Pick your subject before you make your game and make sure you’re sober when you do it. If you drink too much and then try to make up drinking game rules, you’ll find that everything makes a good rule. You’ll just sit and drink throughout the movie. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not a drinking game, it’s hanging out.

For now, let’s assume you’re working with a movie, the basic drinking game premise. If you want to get more creative and think of things to throw around, by all means please do. A good game of ping pong or rubber band/quarters hybrid is always fun.

When working with a movie or TV show, the first step is to watch it through before writing up any rules and brainstorm ideas. I played a Family Guy drinking game with some friends when one of them quit their job. One of the rules was to finish your beer whenever William Shatner appeared. Unfortunately, we started at the beginning of the first season. He appears five times in the first two episodes. In less than 40 minutes, almost seven beers per person were expected to be downed. That’s excessive for most people and it makes the beer disappear too quickly.

So, watch your movie through and write down anything that happens more than once, stuff that people will have to watch for and shout out. Now, write them all up and figure out what’s worthy of drinking. This is where a lot of people mess this process up again. Don’t have too many rules. Yes, the object of this process is to drink a lot, but if you make too many rules, people can’t keep up with the game. You want breather time and most of all you want to make the whole process interactive, so if everyone’s got a beer to their lips for the entire two hours, you aren’t getting anywhere.

When you add the drinks up, you’ll want to have around eight beers in the two hours. People can drink more on their own if they feel like it. Now, pick a few good ones for the coveted ‘finish your beer’ rule and then give the rest a decent numerical value of drinks.

But, sitting and drinking to a movie is still just hanging out, so you want to make this puppy fun. There are any number of ways to do this. You’ll want to use your imagination. Try making it a race to call out the drink. The first person to call it gets to name someone to drink double. Or, if you have an odd number of people, have everyone hit someone else and the one person who doesn’t drinks double. Introduce a game of sorts like quarters to coincide with the rules as they’re called out. Have a race if the room you’re in is big enough. If you do it right you can drag a 2 hour movie out to three or four.

The point is to have fun and be original, and still manage some level of responsibility. You don’t want to drink so much as to get sick, nor let any of your friends get sick, so keep it within reason, but make sure you’re all going to have fun. Keep in mind the different rules you’re introducing and the effect you want to have on your party and alter them accordingly.