Loaded Questions

We all really enjoyed Game Night tonight. Loaded Questions isn't the best game to play with only three people (though they admit this right on the box), but if you make the questions and answers the focus rather than concentrating on winning, it's a great game for laughs and interesting conversation.

The star of the show is the deck of cards, each with four--you guessed it--loaded questions on them. The questions fall into one of four categories: hypotheticals ("what would you do if...?"), Anything Goes (random questions like "what are three words you think of when you hear the word 'white'?"), no-brainers ("what is your favorite...?") and personals ("what is the most common compliment people give you?"). Each player takes turns being the one to read out the question, and the other players all write down their answer; then the asker has to guess who wrote which answer. (It's this last part that makes a three-person game less than ideal. It's a bit too easy to make it a competition.)

We haven't played the actual board game very often, but we used to take the deck of cards on car trips. We haven't done that for a while--I guess we’ve been doing fewer car trips recently--but we should definitely bring these cards with us next time. Meanwhile, for posterity, I'd like to record the type of car that Finn would want to own if money were no object ("flying") and the three words he associates with "white": color, marshmallows, grandad. 

Kwizniac (people, places, things)

How’s Your Brain Working Today? The trivia countdown game, noun version. 

I bought this for my 2nd child years ago—I think I intended for it to be a stocking stuffer, but it turned out to be too big for her stocking. And then… I don’t think anyone ever played it! Until now.

It's a simple game--just a deck of cards, each one with 10 clues that direct you to one answer at the bottom of the card. Theoretically, the clue at the top of the card (#10) is the hardest, and the clue at the bottom of the card (#1) is the easiest (although sometimes that certainly did not seem to be true). Each player takes turns being The Reader, who starts reading clues at the top of the card and slowly reads more and more clues, giving the other players time to guess in between. The sooner another player guesses the answer, the more points they receive.

This was not an ideal game for Finn, who got zero points. Even if he hadn't had such stiff competition, I'm not sure he would have done very well at guessing answers like Julia Roberts, the UN, and the ozone layer. But I think he still had fun. I enjoyed it too! Once again I'm going to say this is a game that would be fun on a car trip, with one modification--instead of tracking points based on how many clues were needed to guess the answer (which really needs pen and paper, or at least a phone with a Notes app), it would be easier to just track number of correct guesses.

Warning: not to be played if Sam is in a grumpy mood.

Quiddler

I could have sworn we’d played this game before, but I was wrong. I also thought we’d reached the end of the game cabinet—wrong again! Though we are nearing the end. 

I wish I could remember where we got this game—mainly because I suspect it may have been gifted to us by our friend RME, in which case I feel bad that it took us so long to get around to playing it. But hopefully either 1) we purchased it ourselves and it wasn’t a gift, or 2) RME will be happy that we enjoyed it, and not sad that we didn’t enjoy it sooner. 

Because this is a fun game! Of course, like most of our favorite games, it involves words and spelling. It’s a deck of cards, most of which have one letter (but some have two, like QU or CL; fun note: the decorative letters in the center of each card are "inspired by Celtic manuscripts from 500 - 800 AD such as the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow"). The game is played in several rounds: in the first round, everyone is dealt three cards, and the goal is to use all three cards to spell a word. The next round is with four cards, then five, and so on up to ten. Points are scored based on the number value (displayed on the card) of each letter you use, and the points for letters you don’t use get subtracted from your score. 

Verdict: Fun! Another keeper. (And I say this despite the fact that I came in third place . . . out of three . . . in other words, I am known as The Loser.)

Yahtzee Frenzy

I haven't played Yahtzee for years, but I remember enjoying it as a child. It wasn't one of my absolute favorites like Boggle or Clue, but it was a good second-tier game.

Yahtzee Frenzy is a faster-paced version, where everyone has their own set of five dice (and no noisy cup to shake it in). Rather than having to wait your turn, everyone is rolling dice at the same time. 

This struck me as an improvement, but unfortunately Sam hated this game. He says it brought out the worst in him (which is basically his competitive side) and he wants to get rid of it. I'm a bit averse to that idea (especially because, if I remember right, this was a birthday gift to Finn from his sweet friend M) but if we do keep this game I'll try to remember not to make Sam play it again.

Do You Really Know Your Family?

This is a personal trivia game. Cards prompt you to think of your favorite [fill in the blank] and your family members have to guess your answer. Like my favorite outdoor activity (snorkeling!) or the place Finn would most like to go on vacation (Hawaii!) or how old Milo was when he learned to ride a bike (5!) or what makes Sam the most sad (when Liverpool loses) or what I would most like to build in the backyard (a tiny house for Stacia). We really enjoyed it!

Except for the Challenge cards. Some of these were okay, but some of them we all heartily agreed to skip. A prime example: smell everyone’s feet and rank them from best-smelling to worst-smelling. Um, no thank you! I want to be neither the smeller nor the smellee. 

Trivial Pursuit DVD: Pop Culture Edition

In my memory, Trivial Pursuit is Really, Really Difficult. Then again . . . have I even played it since I was a kid? Trivia is the sort of thing that tends to get easier as you get older (read: the more you learn), at least to an extent (and that extent would be the age where you start to forget stuff). 

Anyway, this Pop Culture version was a little easier than I remembered. It's possible this was mostly because I lucked out and got easy questions. It's also possible because of the subject matter--sadly, I probably know more about pop culture than about history. But I'm pretty sure Finn found it very difficult. It didn't help that this is definitely not a current pop culture game; I'd say it's at least ten years old, if not more like twenty, which means it's really from before Finn's time.  

But I had fun playing! (Maybe because I won?) I'm glad the whole thing wasn't on DVD, as this seems to slow down gameplay. Most of the game is from a deck of cards, and you only go to the DVD when you're on one of the spaces where you can earn a wedge. Weirdly, the DVD questions seemed easier than the card questions. At least this made it easier to earn wedges!

As with most trivia games, I feel like the best iteration of this one would be to bring the deck of cards on a long car trip. 

Rummy (with a Harry Potter deck of cards)

Our options for board games that we own but haven't played yet are really dwindling by this point. But there are all kinds of games that can be played with a deck of cards! And we have a really cool Gryffindor deck that we've hardly ever used. So Sam decided we should settle on a card game instead of a board game for Game Night tonight. 

It took a little bit to decide, since we needed a game that three people can play and that doesn't have super-complicated rules (both to keep from overwhelming Finn, and because we don't have unlimited time to play), but we didn't want to go with one of the more childish games that we've played before, like Go Fish or Memory. I suggested Hearts or Spades, then remembered that Spades has to be played in pairs (not great for 3 people), and Sam thought Hearts sounded too elaborate. We finally settled on Rummy.

We got off to a bad start, since neither Sam nor I could remember the rules, and we were too impatient to thoroughly Google it, so after a too-brief online review we jumped in. But so many things seemed off. We were discarding before we were drawing, the discard pile wasn't face up . . . it was just all kinds of wrong. 

Halfway through, we paused to read the Wikipedia entry for Rummy and ended up with a clearer idea of how to play. We restarted the game and it went much more smoothly after that--and it was much more fun. 

A quick rundown of the rules: Deal 7 cards to each player. Take the top card from the remaining pile of cards ("stock") and lay it face up; this becomes the discard pile. When it's your turn, choose either the face-up card from the discard pile or the face-down one that's on the stock pile. (You can take multiple cards from the discard pile, but having extra cards not only makes it harder for you to win--it also gives your opponent more points when s/he wins.) At the end of your turn, you must leave one of your cards face-up on the discard pile. The aim is to make two melds (three or four of a kind, or three or four cards in one suit that are in sequence). Whoever makes two melds first wins, and you score points by counting up the value of the cards remaining in your opponents' hands. 

Verdict? We're obviously going to keep this deck of cards (the face card art is so cool! And cards are so versatile) and we'll probably play Rummy again at some point, if not on a regular basis.

Monopoly

This is quite possibly the most famous board game ever. It needs no introduction. 

We played the short version (everyone starts with two random properties, and we set a timer) because ain’t nobody got time for the long version, especially on a Tuesday evening. But Sam is already dreaming about playing the long version at Christmas, with drinks. 

I get bored very quicky, playing Monopoly, unless my opponents keep it moving. No lollygagging!! Make it snappy, folks! Sam was brought to blissful reminiscence and nostalgia because apparently he played a lot of this game as a child (albeit the British version). Like, he played it enough that he has a lot of the (British) board memorized. It also brought out the ruthless side in both of us (although we kept it civil, so it remained fun) whereas Finn may be too easygoing and soft-hearted to ever claw his way to victory.

The Big Bang Theory Fact or Fiction Trivia Game, fan edition

We all like watching Big Bang Theory. Sam and I have seen all twelve seasons, and we're currently in the middle of a re-watch with Finn. But I don't think we can be considered Super Fans, and I know none of us has an eidetic memory. As a result, these trivia questions were Too Hard. Even if there's a chance we have a combined IQ of 360, there are too many BBT facts that just can't be retrieved from the recesses of our memories. 

This game would have worked much better for us if the questions had multiple choice answers! As it's decidedly not multiple choice, I suggested getting rid of this game, but Finn was strongly against that idea. So my next suggestion was to give lots of hints (which we basically did this time around, but we could make it official next time) except Sam was strongly against that idea, basically saying "where's the fun in that?" Then Finn suggested that we could each have a super power while playing. His ideas (one person can keep asking until they get it right, one person can have two turns every time...) may not be the ones we go with, but maybe the general idea does have some merit. Anyway, if we do ever play this game again, it will only be with modifications (because the only other option is to watch all the episodes about a half dozen more times, and THAT'S not gonna happen--I mean, sure, we like BBT, but there are other things in life). 

Friends Trivia Game

Another week, another Friends game. This one (obviously) is a trivia game. It has a fun, tricksy little way of keeping score, but really it would be just as much fun (or maybe more so) without that. And it would certainly be more fun without the Charades option, which we ditched halfway through. 

I won (no surprise there, since I practically have every episode memorized). What was a surprise was that I didn’t know all the answers! Only most of them. 

I think the best iteration of this game would be for travel (just asking and answering the questions, no scorekeeping or Charades). It would be a great way to pass the time on a long car trip. 

The One With All The Cards

I wasn’t sure we were going to enjoy this game. It’s an off-brand, Friends-themed Cards Against Humanity, which is kind of like naughty Mad Libs, which is fine for a group of (naughty) adults to play, but not great with a middle-school child. (We once had a Harry Potter-themed Cards Against Humanity deck, and we only ever tried playing it one time. It was a bad combo: it ruined both the sweet goodness of the magical theme at the same time as it ruined the terrible hilarity of a terrible game for terrible people.)

But we are all Friends fans, and after six months or so of Game Nights we are getting to the point where we are scraping the bottom of the game cabinet, so we gave this one a try. Before we started I was sure we would end up deciding to get rid of it, but I was wrong. We all enjoyed it. We didn’t have much time to play today (I think we only played three rounds) but we all would have been happy to keep going if we’d had the time. 

Dabble

I was a little leery of playing this game (I think I only played it once before, about thirteen years ago, and it did not end well that time) but it turned out to be fun. It's kind of a cross between Boggle and Scrabble. (Why do so many of my favorite games involve words or spelling??) Everyone gets 20 random letter tiles, and the aim is to use them all to make 5 words that you place on a special display rack. You've got to have one two-letter word, one three-letter word, one four . . . you get the idea. 

We didn't play with all the details in the rules (counting points, etc). We just started with a trial run (not using a timer, which meant it ended up going on for too long), then three timed rounds (stopping a round at five minutes is a much better system)--and we each won one! Although before the end, we discovered that Finn had cheated when he won. (There are a few blank tiles that can be used as any letter, and we thought he had drawn one of these, when in reality he had just turned a lettered tile back-to-front so that it looked blank and fit with the word he wanted to make.) But really--not that I want to encourage my son to be a cheater--I think that made the game more memorable. And it was quite a (slyly) clever idea!

I would not mind Dabbling on a semi-regular basis.

SORRY!

It was a lovely day today: sunny, balmy, just a light breeze. I didn't get to spend much of it outdoors, but then we had the great idea of doing Game Night on the patio!

SORRY! is a game that I played as a kid, but that was a while ago; I had to refresh my memory on the rules. Plus, this version has Fire power and Ice freeze, which didn't exist in the 70s. At first glance, gameplay seemed too complicated; this game is quite similar to Trouble, just not as simple. But in the end, I'm pretty sure the extra complexity made it more fun. Everyone enjoyed this one! It's a bit cutthroat at times, but everyone was a good sport. 

Cranium Cadoo

This game is very similar to the original Cranium game (in terms of sculpting with clay, acting out words, drawing pictures, etc) but it's geared more towards kids (which is good for Finn--he really liked this game--but not as good for Sam, who thought it was too easy). It also can be played more quickly. Even though we missed our usual 5pm start time by quite a lot this evening, we still finished playing by 6pm. 

I don't think this game would be much fun to play in an all-adult group, but it's a great game for an adult or two to play with school-aged kids. It's definitely a keeper! I really love these Cranium games, and luckily Sam didn't hate this one like he hated the original version. 

Fact or Crap

Fact or Crap is a trivia card game that is very similar to the Science or Fiction segment on the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast. Only on the podcast. you're given three (or four) science news items or facts, one of which is fake, and you are challenged to sniff out the fake; in this card game, while each card does have three statements on it, you're just given one fact (or crap) for each turn. (Unless it's a Rush Hour card! In which case you're required to correctly guess for all three items on the card.)

The biggest difference between Fact or Crap and Sci or Fic is that this card game gives no explanations. In this card game, you may learn that kanshi is not the Korean version of haiku, but you would not learn that kanshi, a term which means "Han poetry," is actually a Japanese term for Chinese poetry written by Japanese poets, the earliest collection of which was compiled in the year 751. Or, you may learn that England's Stonehenge predates the Colosseum in Rome, but you would not learn that their difference in age is several thousand years. And you may learn that caterpillars have more muscles than humans, but you would not learn that caterpillars have approximately 3,400 more muscles than humans.

But! It's much easier to play many rounds of Fact or Crap. And you can google the explanations later!

Risk: Halo Wars

This is a looooong game. Like, way worse than Monopoly, even. I mean, just the setup takes forever--Game Night was practically over before we had all the pieces in position. (I'm sure the fact that we are Risk noobs did not help.) Plus, we never found a good (read: fast or efficient) system to count up the number of troops we could deploy at the beginning of each turn, which slowed down gameplay. We ended up leaving the board out on our kitchen table and continued play over four days. (Or was it five??)

Unfortunately, Finn loved this game. I have a feeling I will be forced to play it again in the future. 

Scattergories

Another old familiar favorite, if maybe not quite as old or as familiar or as favorite as Clue. I guess if you have been living under a rock since 1988, you might not know that this is a game with 16 lists of 12 categories each, and a 20-sided die with one letter of the alphabet on each side (mercifully excluding Q, U, V, X, Y and Z). You play by selecting a list (we typically start with List 1), rolling the die to determine what letter to focus on for that round, starting the timer (which has three settings: short, medium and long . . . I totally recommend the long setting!), and then trying to come up with an example for each of the 12 categories on the list before time runs out. This might be easy, except for the fact that your examples must all start with the letter that was rolled on the die. And you're better off if you can come up with original answers (because you only get a point if no one else writes the same thing down), although most of the time if you manage to fill in the blank with anything at all, it's a relief.

Finn found this game difficult, but he still managed to have fun. Actually the adults found it a bit difficult too. Sam said it was a little like being back in school. I'm not sure I ever managed to fill in all 12 blanks. But we all enjoyed it, played 6 rounds (and had more fun with G and W than with O, E L and J) and would definitely play again. My favorites are always the two-pointers (where your answer has two words that start with the correct letter) like Greta Gerwig (category: TV star), William Wallace (category: historical figure), or Where the Wild Things Are (my example for Book) or World War Z (Sam's book). And how did the 12-year-old come up with Water (something in the sky) when the adults came up blank??

Quelf

This was a fun game in a crazy, Cranium-style way. It incorporates elements from all kinds of other games: charades, Scattergories, and even childhood favorites like Name That Tune or Made You Laugh. We learned that avocados are toxic to parrots. Finn told a spooky story, I had to thumb-wrestle him, and Sam wrote a haiku. 

We had fun, and we laughed a lot (except when we were trying not to). I guess that makes this one a keeper too!

By the way, here's that haiku, for posterity's sake: 

My Armpits

Bald and fresh when young

Sour and hairy as I age

You are always mine

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza

This is a fast, fun card game that is pretty new to us. I actually got it for Sam as a stocking stuffer a year or two ago, but for whatever reason we never played it. Then Finn got another set as a birthday gift this year. He and his friends played it at his party, so that was our introduction to it, and we played it for the first time tonight. 

Each card has a cute, simple picture on it: either a taco, a cat, a goat, a wedge of cheese, a slice of pizza . . . or a gorilla, a groundhog, or a narwhal. The deck is dealt out to all the players, then everyone takes turns laying cards in the middle. As you lay a card down, you say the next name in the title sequence, and if what you say matches the picture on the card, you slap the pile as fast as you can. If someone lays down one of the three "special" cards, you have to do a particular action or motion first, then slap the pile. Last one to slap the pile takes the pile, and the object is to get rid of all your cards, so you don't want to be the last one to slap the pile. 

We laughed a lot as we played this, and we all enjoyed it, so we'll definitely be keeping it. (Although I think we don't need two decks. Unless . . . should we combine them?? I don't know, that would make for a really long game.)

Also, I'm not sure how often I'll want to play this game. My hands hurt. 

In a Pickle

Here's another word game with cards, but this one doesn't have a guessing element. It's more of an association game, specifically in terms of size. You have to link two nouns with one being able to "fit into" another. And you can go as literal or figurative, or as silly or serious, as you like. You could, of course, put a Pickle in a Jar. Or you could put a Brain in a Bucket. (ew!) And maybe Art is bigger than Asia. Or you could draw a Circle around . . . just about anything, so don't waste that Circle card. It's a winner.

I think the possibilities are a little too endless, and that may be this game's downfall. You can challenge the more tenuous links, but this puts you in greater danger of having your own links challenged later on. Or you can let your opponents' more tenuous links slide, and then get annoyed because you reach a point where you can claim to put almost anything into almost anything else, and that's just too silly. 

I actually voted to get rid of this game; not because I hated it, but because I didn't love it, and our Game Cabinet is so full that there's no way we could cram another game in there; if we don't get rid of any games, we'll never be able to get any new ones. But . . . Finn loved it! And we have decided that as long as anyone votes to keep it, we keep it.