Gaming Cultures:: Spring 2006: LIT 4930: Drinking Games
It'd be interesting to see how drinking games evolved--do they follow from the trajectory of everyone taking a drink to celebrate a particular event (toasts at weddings, drinks at New Year's) or for just the purpose of getting drunk? Basically, did they come from parlour games or bar games or both? How did they evolve?
I found a few links on drinking games, but nothing definitive:
http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2005111701030
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/cuisine_drink/alcohol/jiuling.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strat_(drinking_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Drinking_games
One of the games listed in Wikipedia is a parlor drinking game:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap-dragon_%28game%29
And Beer Pong looks like it's connected to Pong, and probably
to the way indoor sports games like pool and bowling are played:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Pong_%28paddles%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Pong
I don't know if parlour-style drinking games are still played, and I don't know how many 'grown-ups' play drinking games or if they're mainly the domain of younger folks.
This looks like a really rich topic where alcohol is the center of the topic and the games range from parlour, indoor sports, card, and trivia styled game play. I think this is actually a really good topic and it could be useful to see how the games have evolved in different cultures and what elements they use (it seems like a lot of them are emergent and use supplies that would be on hand to create games taht will work in bar
There's also a lot of evidence of drinking
games in other countries and throughout western history:
http://english.bjta.gov.cn/Restaurant/drink-jiu5.asp
http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/games_and_sports.htm
http://www.indiana.edu/~engs/articles/ar1096.htm
someone at Stanford working on cards and drinking games:
http://art.utk.edu/art_history/faculty/faculty.html