Since 2011, The Newly-Dead Game® has been a fixture at the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival, and couples always scramble to participate. This year, everyone in the audience can play along, with a new Individuals Edition of the game!
Frozen Dead Guy Days is a wild and wacky annual winter festival held in the tiny mountain town of Nederland, Colorado, just west of Boulder. This year’s event takes place March 8-10, 2019. Frozen Dead Guy Days has been nominated in USA Today’s 2019 10 Best Readers’ Choice travel awards. You can vote once a day now through Monday, March 11th.
A Short History of The Newly-Dead Game
In March of 2010, the ABC Nightly News ran a national story about this crazy festival in Nederland, Colorado. From my home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I was transfixed by images of coffin racing over a snowy obstacle course, a parade of hearses, and costumed polar plunging. I said to myself, “I don’t know how, but next year, I’m going to be there as part of that festival.”
At the time, I was writing my book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, and working with a marketing guru. He suggested creating a game that would be fun as well as educational and came up with the title.
The Newly-Dead Game is based on the idea behind the classic television show, The Newlywed Game. Couples are quizzed on how well they know their partner’s last wishes. The couple that gets the most questions right win fun prizes.
The first year at Frozen Dead Guy Days, we played the game in a tent during breaks between musical acts. I froze at a windswept information table the rest of the time. In subsequent years, I took on the responsibility of also showing the humorous documentary “Grandpa’s in the TUFF Shed.” The 1998 film tells the strange but true story of how Bredo Morstoel came to be the Frozen Dead Guy (read the full story here). It also got me out of the cold and into a comfortable indoor setting.
How to Play the Individuals Edition
Both the Couples and Individuals editions of The Newly-Dead Game pose four questions. While couples can be asked different questions, individuals have four simple questions to answer themselves. However, your answers may not be so simple. The four questions are:
- Do you have a will?
- What are your disposition plans?
- Do you have advance medical directives?
- Do you have a final resting place for your mortal remains?
In the Individuals edition, you can choose one of four answers for each question. The number of points you get for your answer depends on your degree of preparedness. The last answer is always, “I don’t care. I’ll be dead.” Strategy hint: You won’t get any points for that answer.
You can buy a digital version of The Newly-Dead Game for couples here. If you purchase the download, we’ll send you a bonus – your own Individuals Edition of the game!
Attend Film Showings and Games!
The Newly-Dead Game will be played four times during the 2019 Frozen Dead Guy Days festival. If you’re in the neighborhood, you can find us in Unit 108 on the first floor at the Caribou Shopping Center, 20 Lakeview Drive, Nederland.
This is also where you can see showings of Robin Beeck’s 25-minute documentary masterpiece, “Grandpa’s in the TUFF Shed.” It’s showing every 30 minutes on Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Don’t miss this chance to laugh and learn about how the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival got started!
Here’s the schedule for both editions of The Newly-Dead Game:
- Saturday, 1:00 p.m. – Couples Edition
- Saturday, 5:00 p.m. – Individuals Edition
- Sunday, 12:00 p.m. – Individuals Edition
- Sunday, 4:00 p.m. – Couples Edition
A big thank you to our sponsors who make these film showings and The Newly-Dead Game at Frozen Dead Guy Days possible: AquamationInfo.com, Seven Stones Botanical Garden Cemetery, and Passages International.