The Lucky Escape Drinking Game Idea

Hi and welcome back!

All stories have a beginning and Lucky Escape's story began just under 3 years ago (November 2005). A really good friend of ours had decided that he was going to move to Oz and wanted to throw a memorable going away party. Since we had a bit of a reputation for successfully getting other people drunk he assigned us the task of making sure his kitchens stock of alcohol was drunk dry before the end of the night.

We have always been a big fan of drinking games since our university days (check out our favorites at www.lucky-escape.com), so upon arriving at our friends place, we spent around 15 minutes in his kitchen trying to think of something new to get the party moving.

The end result was very simple and it just involved a cardboard box, a permanent black marker, some glasses and a single dice (we know the singular of dice is 'Die' but it just doesn't look right!!). Unfortunately, we may try to market this simple game at some point so we can't give all the details but the end result was more effective than we ever would have expected.

People of different age groups were really enthusiastic about playing (aged between 25-50) and wanted to play again and again until they lost and needed to drink a forfeit. Friends, who normally avoided shots or strong drinks (we had no success with them for years), were suddenly happy to play this simple drinking game. Needless to say, our task was completed successfully, all the alcohol was finished and the party was a great success (not just because of us and the game of course, but we certainly helped!).

So once we'd recovered from our own hangovers we tried to analyse why the game was such a success. Our conclusions were :

1. It was simple. Its perfectly fine as a host to interrupt small groups of people at a party with a brief fun distraction, but turning off the music and explaining rules to a game will kill the momentum of any party.

2. It was clear to the player that there is a good chance that they could escape from the game without drinking a forfeit. I.e. A high probability of a "Lucky Escape"!

3. The game looked like it was a lot of fun.

We then began to think that perhaps the game would be something that people would buy and after that we just kept going and going...

That's it for this post. In the next 'instalment' we will discuss our experiences with game agents and how a game made from a cardboard box and some glasses, evolved into an electronic drinking game with lighting and sound effects.

And remember to check out our website to get up to date information about the game production date at www.lucky-escape.com.

Skål! (Swedish for cheers)