Walk down the halls of any dorm at Stanford and no matter what hour of the day or night, you can always find people studying. Anyone who has ever pulled an all-nighter finishing a problem set or writing a dreaded research paper knows that college can be stressful at times. While students at Stanford know how to buckle down and work hard, they also know how to unwind and relax, and there’s no better way to balance academics and fun than with a nerdy drinking game! Here are a few for you and your friends to try.
Keep in mind that just because drinking games are associated with alcohol, these games are still an entertaining study break without it – water or other non-alcoholic beverages are always an alternative.
Drunk Driving/Beerio Kart
Unlike the name suggests, this game does not condone drinking and operating actual vehicles. The only cars required to participate in this game are those in Mario Kart. You need a minimum of two people to play this game. Play a normal game of Mario Kart, except in order to win, you have to both cross the finish line and finish drinking your designated beverage. While this may sound easy, the trick lies in the fact that players cannot be holding both their video game controller and their drink at the same time. It’s illegal to drink and drive!
Drinkopoly
Before starting a game of Monopoly, designate the different colored properties on the board with different types of drinks. In order to buy a property, players have to drink the beverage assigned to it. When a player is in jail, he or she has to drink every time that anyone else has to drink, and whenever somebody passes GO, everyone else but that person takes a drink. Instead of paying taxes, players instead contribute beverages to a tall glass in the middle of the board. When someone lands on free parking, they have to drink the middle glass as their penalty. Anyone who has actually succeeded in completing a game of Monopoly knows that this game can last a long time without drinks, so prepare yourself for a long night of entertainment when playing Drinkopoly!
Creative Writing
For those of you who are inclined to writing and story-telling, this is the perfect game for you. The players in this game stand in a line and each person will say a part of a story. This can be as short as one sentence per person; however, the people in line do not tell their part of the story in the order in which they are standing. Random people in the line randomly declare their thoughts. However, the goal is to eventually create a story that makes sense, which isn’t always as easy as it may seem. While this game is extremely funny without alcoholic beverages, drinking can be incorporated so that every time someone laughs or fails to connect the elements of the story, he or she is penalized with a drink.
Beer Battleship
Play this classical game of tactics with drinks by assigning different beverages to the different ships involved in the basic version of Battleship. Make sure to penalize the sinking of the smallest ships with the largest or most potent beverages.
The Bachelor
What better way to relax from a stressful week of school than to watch a show with your friends? One version of “The Bachelor”: The Drinking Game is that whenever any girl on the show cries, everyone watching has to take a drink. While crying may not be a regular occurrence on other shows, the overly dramatic scenes of “The Bachelor” guarantee that plenty of tears will be shed. Special bonus: if the bachelor is caught crying, everyone has to double his or her drink. There are many other versions of this game as well – you can play with “Modern Family”, “How I Met Your Mother” or pretty much any other show you can think of rules for. Be creative! (Ed. note: This game works particularly well with “Jersey Shore.”)