MASH Game

Start with the lists. Under each heading there are four empty lines: who you will marry, your car, your job, the city you live in, how many kids, your pet and where you go on your honeymoon. Type whatever you like over the hints, or press Fill the rest for me and the game writes the empty ones for you. Then press Draw my spiral. A spiral starts drawing itself on the page; press Stop when it feels right, or press the space bar on a computer. The rings are counted, and that count becomes your magic number. MASH then counts round the page, crossing out every item that lands on your number, until each list has one item left. Those survivors are read out as your future, and you can share it, play again with the same lists or go back and change them.

On paper, one person draws a spiral, usually with their eyes closed, while a friend waits to shout stop. You then draw a straight line from the center to the edge and count how many times it crosses the spiral. Here the spiral grows about one ring every half second, and a red line counts the rings for you once you stop. The number can be anything from 2 to 12. A small number crosses things out quickly and in clumps; a big number jumps around the page and is much harder to predict, which is half the fun. Counting always starts at the M, runs through every list in order and wraps back to the top, skipping anything already crossed out. When a list is down to its last item, that item is circled and the counting passes it by.

The classic trick is to mix two dream answers with two disasters in every list. Put your crush and your celebrity crush next to someone you would never pick, a sports car next to a minivan with a dent, a dream job next to something like professional napper. Cities can be real places or ridiculous ones, and the pet list is where people get creative: a llama, a grumpy cat, a goldfish with a human name. The idea lists under the game have plenty to borrow if your mind goes blank. Keep it kind if you write in friends' names, since the result will probably get read out loud.

Once you know the rules, the categories are yours to change. Some people play a ten-years-from-now version with lists for college, first job and where you will be living. Friends often swap and fill in each other's lists, which is funnier because nobody gets to protect their favorite answer. Couples sometimes play it as a joke version of planning the future, with lists for dream trips, house rules and the name of a future dog. You can also play the old way: grab a sheet of lined paper and follow the rules printed under the game.

MASH works best out loud. Read the fortune in your most dramatic voice, and let whoever drew the spiral take the blame for anything terrible. If you are playing with a crush, keep the lists light and silly rather than putting them on the spot; a game should never make someone feel cornered. Play again with the same lists to see how much a different number changes everything, and save the best futures to send later. And if MASH puts your crush next to a shack and twelve kids, remember that it is a spiral, not a prophecy.

No, and that has always been the charm. A spiral cannot know who you will marry. What MASH does show is whose name you wrote down first, and that can be a small answer of its own. If there is a real person behind the name on your list, the Do They Like Me quiz looks at the signs that actually matter, and How to Tell Someone You Like Them helps when you are ready to say it. For a quick laugh with two names, try the Love Tester. And if a crush is taking up more of your head than a game can sort out, Lovon is an AI relationship coach you can talk it through with, out loud.