We at Surprizle just finished testing some variations of the popular Gift Card Exchange Game, played by families and friends, particularly around the holidays.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with this gift card game which involves each person in the room opening a gift card – and then rolling dice or flipping cards to swap and exchange gifts with other participants.
It’s a fun and interactive way to enjoy time with friends and family – in person.
But what do you do when you can’t be home for the holidays? Or when your friends are scattered around the country (or the world?)
You find a way to have fun together – online. And where can you find gift cards for playing games like this? Well, you can definitely get those e-gift cards from Surprizle. But what exactly would an online version of these gift card games look like?
The Surprizle team spent a several happy evenings kicking around gift card game ideas to develop a version that was both easy to understand and fun to play. But online.
Do we structure the games to revolve around one vendor? Do we make this an Amazon gift card game, for example? Or is it better to require each person to provide a different gift card? How do we make this interactive? Can it still be fun?
The answer to that last question is yes, but there are some ground rules (just like any other games) that make the process easier to follow, and fun for everyone.
So whether you’re hosting Christmas gift card games with family – or a New Years Eve game night with friends – we hope you’ll enjoy this online version of the popular gift card exchange game!
And, as always, be creative, be safe – and have fun!
The Surprizle Holiday Gift Card Exchange Game
Pregame:
- Identify the date and time of the game day
2. Select the dollar amount each participant will spend on a gift card.
3. Determine if certain gift cards are off-limits: ex. no visa gift cards, no food gifts, etc.
4. Identify who will be sending and who will be receiving each Surprizle. Suggestion: make a list of the first names of everyone participating. Each person will send their Surprizle to the person behind them, alphabetically. If you are the end of the alphabet, you send your gift to the person at the top of the list.
Using Surprizle, each person:
1. Selects and designs a puzzle, making the game as easy or difficult as they would like.
2. Identifies the appropriate puzzle recipient, based on the pregame guidelines above.
3. Chooses a gift card that meets the Pregame criteria above.
4. Determines whether or not the recipient can take the Easy Way Out
5. Sends gift
Each recipient acknowledges receipt of the puzzle BUT DOES NOT OPEN IT. Once everyone has received their Surprizle, you should select an online game host. Who then chooses a remote meeting venue: zoom, google meet, teams, facetime, etc., sending the appropriate invitation to all participants.
Beginning The Game:
On the day of the event, once you are all in the same online room, each person solves their puzzle in front of the entire group with as much or as little help as needed. While solving the puzzle, each person shares their screen so that everyone in the group can see their progress.
After each puzzle has been solved, and each of the gift cards has been revealed, the host of the online meeting records who currently holds each gift card. It is the host’s job to track who ends up with which gifts as the game progresses.
Rolling the Dice:
Everyone opens a preselected dice rolling site. (We’re fans of flipsimu.com – but any will do.) Configure the site to roll two separate 6-sided dice.
Each person shares their screen when it is their turn to roll the dice.
Gifts are exchanged according to the below guidelines:
Roll a 2: You stink at rolling, roll again.
Roll a 3: Exchange gift cards with the person who lives closest to you.
Roll a 4: Choose any 2 people (not yourself) and make them exchange gift cards.
Roll a 5: Everyone passes their gift card up the list of names, alphabetically.
Roll a 6: Everyone passes their gift card up the list – twice.
Roll a 7: Exchange gift cards with the person of your choice.
Roll a 8: Everyone passes their gift card down the list – twice.
Roll a 9: Everyone passes their gift card down the list of names.
Roll a 10: Choose the best and worst gift cards (not yours) and make those people exchange.
Roll a 11: Exchange gifts with the person who lives furthest from you.
Roll a 12: You stink at rolling, skip this turn.
Roll a 13: You win all the gifts (but you may have cheated).
We recommend a minimum of two complete cycles – where everyone gets to roll the dice twice – for the game. This allows for a larger amount of gift exchanges throughout gameplay.
Finishing:
After the last round of rolling is complete, the host reviews who has won which gift cards. Individuals then share the appropriate gift card information with one another to ensure everyone leaves with the appropriate logins, redemption #s or codes to redeem their gift.
Depending on the complexity of the puzzles, the size of the group, and the, uh, revelry of the participants, our testers have found that this game can last anywhere from 30-90 minutes.
Tips, suggestions and other ignorable recommendations:
We recommend that you establish some ground rules for which gift cards can be purchased…to avoid everyone selecting a visa, amazon, apple, best buy, etc. gift card. This could mean putting some vendors off limits. Or…you stipulate that you need to buy a gift card from a company that you normally don’t shop at, but whose store you would still use if you had a gift card. Or maybe you do all food. Or all clothing. Just try to come up with something that creates some gift card variety among the group.
Periodically review who holds which gift card during game play. We’ve found that using a spreadsheet is a boring but effective way to track who has which card at any given time. And it’s easy for the host to share screens with everyone else so that this list can be reviewed by all.
But…like the best of games, the rules here are meant to be tweaked, adjusted and modified to fit the needs of the group.
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