How to Play the Candy Bar Game: a Fun Party Game for All Ages!
How to play the candy bar game. If you’re looking for fun group games with candy, this is the best one! It’s fast moving, fun, and everybody loves it! Plus—you get lots of candy!
I’m always looking for easy and fun games to play at birthday parties for my kids. Especially now that I’ve got teenagers, I want some party games that will keep them entertained but that aren’t too juvenile for their cool teen status, either.
Once upon a time, one of my friends brought this super fun candy bar game to a church activity. We had a ton of fun playing it as a bunch of 30-50 year old women, but it’s perfect for all ages. In fact, it’s great for family parties where you actually do have all ages attending.
We played it at my daughter’s 13th birthday party a few weeks later, and those girls had an absolute blast with it!
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What you need to play the candy bar game:
- A large assortment of candy bars—at least one per player, but having several extra makes the game more fun! (Make sure they are all different kinds—that’s what makes the game fun!) (If you are thinking ahead enough, this candy bar variety pack is a great deal!)
- Dice (we used the colorful dice out of our Tenzi game)
- A timer (you can use your phone, but we like to use our favorite timer that we use for everything)
How to play the candy bar game:
Have everyone sit in a circle with all of the candy bars in the middle. Set your timer for five minutes and start a set of dice around the circle.
Depending on how many people are playing, you may want to use two sets of dice—for my daughter’s birthday we used two sets because we had 11 girls playing.
Each person rolls the dice once and passes them on. If doubles are rolled, you can pick a candy bar either from the pile in the middle or from someone who has already picked one. It’s pretty obvious which candy bars are the coveted ones as the game goes on!
To make the game more interesting, we sometimes do doubles and sevens. If the dice add up to seven (3+4, 2+5, 6+1), then you can also pick a candy bar.
Stealing makes the game truly fun—without the option to steal it would be a little boring!
For instance, if someone rolled doubles and the candy bar they wanted was no longer in the middle, they can steal it from the person who has it in front of them. The person who loses the candy bar does not get to choose a new one—they just lose it and hopefully will get a chance to steal it back if it’s their favorite candy!
Stealing ups the stakes of the game in a super fun way and sometimes people find clever ways to hide the candy bars they have—though there are always those who are even more clever who keep track of their favorites and know exactly where they are, hidden or not!
You can also really tell which candy bars are the most coveted as they change hands pretty often before the end of the game!
When the timer goes off, everyone gets to keep whatever candy bars they have collected.
Related: 8 Ways to Make Your Kid’s Birthday Special
| Above: The candy bar game in action—I was having too much fun watching them to think about getting a good photo! |
While the girls were playing at the birthday party, they felt like that five minutes was a total eternity! The Reese’s Peanut Butter cups were wanted by everyone and changed hands about a hundred times amidst shrieks of laughter.
When the game ended one girl had collected five candy bars! (She was very kind and gave her extras to those who had none, but that is certainly not a requirement!)
The candy bar game is now a staple at all of our teen and tween parties. It is always a huge hit, because who doesn’t love a game that is fun, fast paced, and has the possibility of earning you lots of chocolate?
Variations on the candy bar game:
If you don’t want to contribute to more sugar addictions, you can certainly replace the candy bars with other small gifts. For instance, teen girls would love nail polishes or other health and beauty type items that are easily purchased at the dollar store. Younger kids would like small toys. It would even be a fun way to run a book exchange for your book club!
The possibilities are endless, but when it comes right down to it, we like the candy bar version best.
Even though it only takes five minutes, it’s a super simple game that everyone will love! I can’t wait to play it again at our next party—whenever that will be!
You might also like:
8 Ways to Make Your Kid’s Birthday Special
This post may contain affiliate links, for more information, please see my disclosure.
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