I organized a games night with the help of AI and here’s how you can do it too
I always love game nights with friends. We have an ever-expanding selection of board games, card games and board games to choose from, making every get-together different. But recently I wanted to try using AI as the virtual host of the games.
I asked ChatGPT for some ideas and to be the one to actually run three different types of games. The chaos that followed showed me that game master is a role that AI can play quite well, although you have to keep a close eye on it first.
This is how ChatGPT did as the game night host.
AI Trivia
Trivia games are an easy option to integrate AI, and they’re a real crowd-pleaser, especially since ChatGPT asking the questions meant we could all play at the same time.
To set it up, I asked ChatGPT to act as quizmaster for a games night. Then I gave the AI some general query topics, including space, cooking, and ’90s pop culture, and told it to come up with more. I then instructed him to come up with ten questions for each question and keep track of the scores we submitted.
I also told the AI to have fun as a quizmaster and show some personality, and it immediately became a game show host with over-the-top praise and lame jokes. That was fun, but honestly, the fact that none of us had to referee or prepare questions made it much quicker for us to start actually playing games. That said, there were a few questions that were either too easy or too hard, but it showed me that I need to be specific about the difficulty level in the future.
Virtual Pictionarium
Pictionary is a classic game night activity, but not all of us are the best performers, so I decided to turn to ChatGPT and its DALL-E image generator. Instead of going back and forth guessing, I explained the concept to ChatGPT and had them draw pictures line by line with the pen, with the group having a chance to guess after each line.
It took a while to guess ‘a cat on a unicycle on Mars’ or ‘a dinosaur baking a cake’, but seeing the latest strange illustrations was a lot of fun. We then came up with a variation on the game. Everyone had to guess what the AI had drawn in a somewhat abstract form. If they guessed wrong, they had to try to draw their interpretation of the picture on a whiteboard and see if they were better based on the group’s remaining guesses. No one got ‘a giraffe with a crown’, the closest thing being a confused llama. The group worked on my drawing of a ‘robot doing yoga’, even though I couldn’t tell from the AI’s drawing.
AI murder mystery
We decided to end the evening with a more complex board game: a murder mystery. This one didn’t need much guidance from me. I asked ChatGPT to create a custom murder mystery story for the game. I provided the AI with a premise: the host (me) was the victim and each of my five friends was a suspect with a unique motive.
ChatGPT quickly told a complicated story: I was “poisoned” during a celebratory toast and everyone had a reason for wanting me out of the picture. For example, a friend loves space and wanted revenge because I canceled her stargazing trip. Another friend became a famous foodie who was angry that I mocked his lasagna because it was a little burnt.
I printed out and handed out the character profiles and clues that ChatGPT generated. The AI suggested props, so I set up a small “evidence table” with a bottle of “poison,” also known as apple juice, and a crumpled note that said, “It’s your turn.” Everyone got into character, criticized each other and formed wild theories. In the end, the killer turned out to be the quietest friend, who did it because I forgot her birthday last year.
Everyone loved playing detective and the twists were really surprising, but the backstory could be a bit confusing and contradictory without any editing. Of all the games, this was probably the best received and I can’t wait to do it again soon.