GET DOWN MR PRESIDENT —THE SECRET PARTY GAME THAT CAUSES CHAOS
Most party games stop the day: everyone gathers round, someone explains rules, the BBQ goes cold. This one runs underneath the day. Get Down Mr President is what we call a background game — it ticks along quietly while everyone eats, chats and tops up drinks, and then detonates. Games night, garden party, BBQ with two families' worth of people: it works anywhere there's a group and one person paying insufficient attention.
👥 4+ PLAYERS (MORE = FUNNIER) ·
🎂 5+ · 🎒 NOTHING·
⏱️ RUNS ALL DAY IN THE BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND GAME · BBQS & GATHERINGS · BIG GROUPS · MIXED AGES · ZERO PREP
KIT REQUIRED
None. Not a sausage. This game's entire budget is one straight face.
HOW TO PLAY GET DOWN MR. PRESIDENT
The setup is the whole joke: everyone's a secret service agent except one person, and that person won't know until the game has started, and spectacularly finished, with everyone bundling them. Of all the family party games we share, this one has the highest ratio of laughter to effort — the rules fit in five lines:
- At any point — mid-lunch, mid-conversation, mid-anything — one player silently puts a finger to their ear, secret-service style. No announcement. Just the earpiece.
- Anyone who notices does the same, wordlessly, and carries on chatting like a trained professional.
- One by one the room fills with agents, all touching their ears, all acting entirely normal.
- The last person to notice is, congratulations, the President.
- The moment they clock it, every agent screams "GET DOWN MR PRESIDENT!" and bundles them to safety.
That's it. That's the game. The genius is the slow burn: the longer the President stays oblivious, the better it gets, and there is always one relative who can hold out obliviously for a full twenty minutes while eleven people sit around them like a Bond film.
HOW TO WIN (AND LOSE)
There's no scoreboard — the win is not being President, and the real win is being the agent who started it. House-rule it into a running tally across the day if your family keeps count of things (ours keeps count of everything): one point per successful protection detail, and whoever's been President the most by home time gives a short concession speech. Your Uncle Colin could be President four times this summer. Uncle Colin is not a details man.
SHAKE IT UP
Every game we share comes with Shake It Ups — our favourite ways to twist the rules when the original gets too easy, too samey, or too heated.
- The Gentle Coup (no-bundle version) — not everyone wants to be rugby-tackled, and that's fair — nans, toddlers, and anyone holding a hot drink are protected persons. Instead of the bundle, all agents point at the President and shout the line, and the President must stand and deliver a two-sentence acceptance speech on a topic the group chooses. Somehow more humiliating. Perfect.
- The Eagle Has Landed — the spoken version, for veterans who now clock every ear-touch within seconds. Agree a harmless code phrase ("the eagle has landed" is traditional) that must be smuggled into normal conversation. Hear it, touch your ear. The President is now losing a game happening entirely inside sentences.
- New Signal, Who Dis — rotate the signal each round: adjusting invisible cufflinks, checking an imaginary watch, a slow lapel-straighten. Keeps the paranoia fresh, and turns every family gathering into a low-budget episode of Bodyguard.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OUR FAMILY PLAYS IT
The reel of this game went everywhere, and the comments confirmed what we'd found at home: this game does not stay at the party you started it at, it travels, probably by Air Force One. People play it at work, someone suggested at weddings (not during the father of the bride speech PLEASE), pubs and parks. We find that the youngest agents take the "act natural" part of the job far more seriously than any of the adults, who giggle and blow the whole operation inside a minute.
BRING CHAOS TO YOUR NEXT GATHERING
More games like this could land in your inbox every week — we've got loads of them. Sign-up for games, and we'll send you a little freebie and a 10% discount code.
AND IF YOU'RE THE HOUSEHOLD THAT HOSTS
The one where all the cousins end up at Christmas — our Darty Party set launches in October: a magnetic dartboard and twelve games that give a full room something to fight over in the best way. Join our email list to be the first in the queue, or just get download the games pack now.
