A Better Game of BUNCO

I like to think that planning activities is not simply a task or job, but that it is an art. It is a craft that one can hone. Just like any other craft, it is not easily mastered overnight or by working in the field for a long period of time. In fact, I still consider myself to be at the beginning of my journey to hone my craft of being an activity professional.

I’m sure that every activity director, in every facility, comes across the same problem. Namely, that activities are becoming too routine and mundane for the participants in the facility.  Of course, this is just one extra idea to spice things up, but I hope that by sharing my thought process behind this activity, I can help inspire others to innovate on their own.

Initially, our program was lacking variety in our table games. We can only play UNO and Yahtzee so many times before the staff and even those with short-term memory loss grow bored of it. In looking for a new activity, I wanted to start by investigating what sort of games our members used to enjoy. This way, I hoped to find an activity that would be readily relatable and feel comfortable for the members when we began playing. It turns out, somebody mentioned that their family played BUNCO with their neighbors and that it was a riot whenever they got together. At this point I was slightly petrified, I had never even heard of BUNCO.

So, we investigated and bought a small box of BUNCO at the store. I opened the top and found three white dice, three blue dice, and three red dice accompanied by a silver bell and some rules and score sheets. Naturally, I started looking at the rule book. It turns out, BUNCO is quite a complex and fast-paced game. Without going into the entire game, it involves multiple tables throughout the room all rolling three dice trying to hit a Bunco, which you do by rolling three of a kind. It sounded quite chaotic, and the scoring was complex. First you were all rolling for one’s, and once someone hit enough points you were to run and hit the bell, then everyone was supposed to get up and change tables and start rolling for two’s. I didn’t have to read much to know that this game was going to need some serious rules adaptations for our dementia population!

First off, I knew that we’d have to have one game, at one table, with one score sheet. So, running around trying to play musical chairs between rounds was off limits. Secondly, I needed to simplify the rules so I could explain the game in a sentence or two. I decided that instead of rolling for one’s in perpetuity until someone scored enough points, we would go around the table once for each number. The first time around we would all try for one’s. The second time around we would try for two’s, and so forth up until six. Third, I knew that the bell that came with the game was going to be worth its weight in gold, I mean, who doesn’t like ringing a bell? So whenever we sit down to play, I ask one of our members to be in charge of ringing the bell. When someone rolls and scores, the bell-ringer’s job is to hit the bell. I’ve found this to be empowering for some of our members with dementia, as well as entertaining for the rest of the crowd.

How do you score? The original BUNCO rules were complicated and differentiated high Buncos and low Buncos and all sorts of quirky things to keep track of. So I simplified the rules. During the first round, when you roll the three dice you gain one point for every one that you roll. In the second round, you score for rolling a two. Also, if you roll a three-of-a-kind you gain five points, which is called a Bunco. Additionally, if the three-of-a-kind is the same number as the round (i.e. you roll three four’s in the fourth round) you rolled what I call a Super Bunco and gain ten points. Sometimes, I refer to it as a Holy Bunco just for fun.

Now on your turn, you continue to roll as long as you are scoring points. So, if on your first roll you get a one, you score one point and roll again. If you roll a Bunco you score five more points and roll again. On your third roll, if you score no points, your turn for this round is over and you gain a total of six points. It is possible that on your first roll you do not score, if this happens your turn is over.

The explanation on paper seems more complicated than seeing the game in action. I was very happy to see that this adaptation of the game was still relatable for those who played the game earlier in their lives, but was simple enough for those who had never seen it before. The bell-ringer turned out to be a great idea, and it got our members more involved in leading the game as well.

Anytime you introduce a new game you should be prepared to tweak it as you see how its being received by the participants. At first, I tried using the score sheets that were included with the game, but after trying it out a few times I decided to make my own. I made a simple sheet up with eight columns and a bunch of rows. The first column was for each player’s name. The next six columns were numbered one through six so that you could keep track of each person’s score for each round. The last column was to total up the scores at the end of the game.

We’ve been playing this new version of BUNCO for quite a while now, and to be honest, many of our members ask for us to bring it out to play! The game is easy enough to be played by pretty much all of our members with dementia (all it really requires is rolling dice). Also, I keep evaluating our activities to see how we can improve them and I’m coming to the opinion that we don’t even need to keep score for the game to be fun. One day I wanted to experiment and I asked one of our members to start the game and let the members direct each other through the steps of the game. The dice went around the circle and they started rolling for two’s during the second round. What could be better than this?

- Justin Zarb, ADPC

Image by ty_asta (Flickr)