Writing games are tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

MacGyvering

If you never saw the show MacGyver, or heard of it, I'd be surprised. He was the swiss-army-knife superhero, the guy who used his knowledge of high school science and a penchant for finding the requisite objects in bizarre places (tennis raquet in a nuclear power station, anyone?) to thwart the supervillains of the day.

Some of his solutions were truly ridiculous, and there are entire websites devoted to his bad science (my favourite being his ability to get iron shavings from an aluminium can) but the sheer creative joy of fathoming a solution out of three bits of string and a paperclip was the show's driving force.

So - take a look around and select five objects that aren't immediately obviously useful - no guns, knives, large heavy objects, science kits, etc. If there's an object in another room that you want to use, you may include that provided that it, also, is not immediately useful. This is your MacGyver kit. You may also have a swiss army knife (or leatherman, if you prefer) and a roll of gaffa.

Now come up with a scenario - anything from a hostage situation to a nuclear meltdown. Your character is [wherever], facing [whatever], and the only things they have to hand to solve the problem is gaffa, their leatherman, and [5 items]. Go.