{"id":430,"date":"2012-01-10T19:50:16","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T11:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dr-mikes-math-games-for-kids.com\/blog\/?p=430"},"modified":"2024-02-16T21:13:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T13:13:34","slug":"two-games-called-meta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dr-mikes-math-games-for-kids.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/two-games-called-meta\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Games Called Meta"},"content":{"rendered":"

The past few days, my kids have been arguing about what game to play after school. The younger one wants to play Junior<\/a> Monopoly<\/a> but the older one thinks that’s too boring. The elder one wanted to play Blokus<\/a>, but the younger one said that was too difficult.<\/p>\n

My wife suggested Pictionary<\/a> as a compromise, but they didn’t like that idea either. So I suggested a game called Meta.<\/p>\n

The rules of Meta are quite simple – each player writes, on a piece of paper, a game they’d like to play. The pieces of paper are put in a hat. Then, one is drawn at random, and the named game is played.\u00a0My elder son thought this was a great idea, so he proceeded set up a game of Meta. He got a hat and some scraps of paper, and started to ask everyone what game they wanted to play.<\/p>\n

When he asked me, I didn’t really have a preference. After some thought, I chose “Meta”, which he dutifully wrote down. Of course, writing “Meta” came with the risk that the game would take longer, but that’s ok. I like Meta.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, when the name of the game was chosen, it was “Junior Monopoly”. At this point, my elder son quit in disgust, which is quite against the rules. I suppose we won’t be playing Meta again for a long time.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it’s just as well. After all, if we all grew to love Meta, we might always all write “Meta” every time. Then we’d be forced to cut the game short at bedtime, and never find out who won.<\/p>\n

This reminds me of a quite different game, also called Meta, for two players. The rules of this other Meta are simple.<\/p>\n