I find that too many drinking games require an amount of athletic ability, or focus that makes the act of getting belligerently drunk a little less fun. That’s why my favorite drinking game is a simple game called murder.
From what I’ve gathered from a few passionate friends and the internet, this game is a variation of a more common game called “Ride the Bus.” That game sounds complicated. I promise you though, this one is straight forward, and it gets everyone involved blind drunk.
The game is started with a deck of cards being dealt into a 4×4 grid. Players then take turns guessing higher or lower (Ace is high) on one of the cards. When they guess, the top card is flipped on top of the selected stack. For example, if one of the stacks has a four on top, and you choose higher, a five or above is safe. Once you get three correct answers in a row, your turn is over. The next person is up.
The fun part of this game is when somebody guesses wrong. When this happens, they have to drink a second for each card in the stack. To make this even worse, the rest of the players count this number at their own pace. So, if you make a wrong guess on a stack with six cards, you have to drink until your friends count to six, “seconds.”
When you run out of cards to deal, you take the first row of cards off the board. Those cards become the stack you deal from. The rest of the stacks stay untouched, meaning the time you have to drink will be exponentially increasing throughout the game.
There are another few rules that make the name of this game even more accurate. First, if the flipped card is the same value as the one you picked, you double the amount you drink. So if you say higher on a seven with eight cards underneath it, and a seven comes out, you drink for sixteen seconds.
Another chaotic rule is the one that punishes people who miscount. If you say the wrong number when it is your turn to count, you pick up whatever was left in that person’s chug. If someone waits ten seconds before saying the right number, they are fine. But if you immediately say the wrong number, you’re done. The chug also goes to the next person when the person drinking finishes their drink. Basically, everyone should be ready to chug at all times.
This is the main gist of murder. It’s a game of probability the gambling addict of the group will try to figure out. When they fail, it will undoubtedly be fun for everyone else. Especially because a seasoned veteran will go from sober to drunk after one round of this game.
