Although billed as an education game, we like to think of Guess What! as a great party game with lots of pedagogical potential. Sure the game promotes spatial awareness, hand-eye coordination, pattern recognition, and geometric reasoning, but no one would care if it wasn’t so much fun.

At heart, Guess What! is a cross between Tangrams and Charades. Players take turns getting the other players to guess a word by making a picture with colorful plastic shapes. There are 81 cards, each containing 6 clues. The active player rolls a die, starts the timer, and must make that object with the tangram-style plastic pieces. Guessing players may ask yes or no questions, and the first one to guess correctly wins 2 points. The building player also gets 2 points if the word is correctly identified. Guessing players may also ask for the first letter of the word but this reduces the point value to 1 if the builder answers.

When we played with 6 people, we never ran out of time, but there was a lot pressure from all the guessing and questions that flew around. Clue building was especially intense because you had to simultaneously think about the item, sort through all the plastic pieces, arrange the pieces, and field questions from frantic guessers. Admiring (or ridiculing) the pictures at the end made up a big part of the fun.

There are a couple of clever additional features to the game. For younger players there are 27 Junior Cards which have a single clue PLUS a picture of how to build the item. This allows younger kids a way to manipulate the pieces while also creating something that the guessers will recognize. The pieces themselves are crafted from a flexible plastic that will cling to most clean, smooth surfaces (like refrigerators, windows, whiteboards, or laminated paper). Although this did not really affect the way we played on a table top (the pieces did not slide much) it does allow other kinds of play on vertical surfaces. Good for school and other creative play.

You do have to punch the pieces out before you can play (a process that proved more difficult than necessary, but that’s a small nitpick), but once you do, play is quick and intuitive. The directions are short and provide plenty of play alternatives. Major Fun for parties and school!

For 3-8 players, ages 5+

Guess What! © 2010 by EduStic.

Now that the holiday madness and the season of profligate spending is behind us (only 320 shopping days until Christmas 2013!!), we can sit back and reflect on what is really important: what to do with that awkward gift from your great-aunt. You know, the rhinestone encrusted, macramé lamp shade that she expects will festoon the primary reading light in your living room. She visits just enough that your excuses could become strained (“You know, Aunty, we had to have one of the rhinestones replaced and they would only do it under warranty at the factory in Turzbekistan.”) On the other hand, she’s getting up there in age and her eyesight and memory are a bit dodgy.

And thus you are caught in the vortex of the white elephant gift…

Mayday Games and Brian Kelley have done a great job of staying true to the spirit and the rules of the classic white elephant gift exchange. If you are Turzbekistani or otherwise unfamiliar with this holiday tradition, this game will prove a fun and invaluable means of expanding your cultural literacy. To sum up—which the game does in beautifully concise rules— your goal is to acquire the best gift you can from three target colors. The gifts are represented with 50 cards: five groups of ten cards (red, orange, green, blue, and yellow) and each card has a point value from 1 – 10.

You are dealt a hand of cards. All players take one card from their hand and place it face down in the center of the table. This is called “Going to the Party.” The starting player takes one card and turns it face up. The second player (clockwise) now has a choice. He or she can “steal” the face-up card from Player One or take one of the mystery cards. If Player Two steals then Player One must draw from the mystery pile. Player Three, in turn, can steal from Players One and Two or take from the middle.

There are five card colors but the players have a “Gift List” of three colors that they are trying to acquire. Only cards of these colors will count at the end. If your “Gift List” is Green, Red, Yellow then you are trying to collect those colors. Other colors will not score at the end.

There is quite a bit of silly luck in the game (the game is Major Fun so the silly factor is very high) but enough strategy that you can position yourself for good points. You have to decide when is the best time to steal—especially the high value cards. Too early and someone will just snatch it away from you. Too late and someone might beat you to it. Take a chance in the middle? You might wind up with a set of unflossed Billy-Bob teeth worth one point. And ain’t nobody gonna steal that from you.

Game play is easy to learn and very fast. The laughs come just as quick. Best of all, you put all the “gifts” back in the box until the next time you play.

For 3-7 players, ages 8+

White Elephant designed by Brian Kelley. © 2011 by Mayday Games, Inc.

Pick-a-Dog, and/or Pick-a-Pig, invites you to a series of intense, yet genuinely fun challenges to your abilities to visually discriminate, in a good way.

You get 96 square cards which turns out to be three sets of 36 different cards. These different cards look like pigs (should you have purchased Pick-a-Pig) or dogs (as in Pick-a-Dog). These 36 illustrated pigs or dogs appear remarkably alike, except for the following slight, but so significantly significant differences: some have one hand showing, some both; some are holding popcorn, some wearing sunglasses, some are large, some are small, some are tanned, and some not. Thus, you might note one large, untanned pig, showing only one arm, which is not holding popcorn, but is wearing sunglasses.

The game begins thus: the cards are shuffled, each player picks one card, and places it face-down in front of her (this, for some designerly reason, is called the “Captain card”), 30 more cards are selected from the deck and arranged face-up in five rows of six cards, or six rows of five cards, as determined by dealer’s whim.

Players simultaneously turn their Captain card face up and engage in a passionately focused scan of the so-named “Member” cards on the table, looking for a Member card that is either identical, identical-minus-one (the pig or dog on the Captain card is holding popcorn, showing only one arm, wearing sunglasses, and pale in color, and here’s a pig or dog holding popcorn, showing only one hand, wearing sunglasses, pale in color, but larger), and places that card, face-up, on top of the Captain card. Now the player must find another Member card that is identical, or one-off, from the new card on top of her pile. And so it goes, and goes, everyone simultaneously, and hence, frantically searching for the next available, identical or one-feature-different Member card (said franticity being further augmented by that certain someone who just laid claim to precisely the same card you thought you so totally needed). On and on, until no usable cards are available.

If, upon scrutinizing the remaining cards, you determine that such a point has been reached, you utter the “stop” word. “Stop,” you say. All players must do as uttered, and join you in shared scrutiny. If, in deed and truth there are no cards for you to have used, the round is over, and you get a bonus card. On the other hand, if someone can demonstrate that such Member card is in fact present, you lose all your cards. O, the humanity.

Players then show their collection, demonstrating to themselves and each other how diligent they have been in selecting only the appropriate cards – each only one feature different, or entirely the same as the preceding – laying claim to these cards as their “winning pile.” The next round begins, each player receiving a new Captain card, empty spaces in the array being filled in from the cards not yet in play. When there are not enough Member cards to fill in the array, the last round has been reached.

The difference between Pick-a-Pig and Pick-a-Dog is that all the cards in the Pig deck are pigs, and all the cards in the Dog deck are as you probably already surmised. Thus, you really only need to purchase one of these decks to share the afore-described hilarity with your playful pals. On the other hand, should you have purchased both decks, you have: a) one more difference to look for (the dog cards look surprisingly similar to the pig cards, except for their doggy mouth parts) b) enough cards for eight players.

Despite all the nuances of the rules, the game takes maybe three minutes to learn and ten to play. And once the game is in progress, any passer-by can almost immediately figure out what’s going on, and could easily be invited to join you as a partner in fray. The art adds to the humor. The challenge remains fun and fascinating from the beginning to the end of the game. It’s a filler game, all right. But it fills everyone with energy and laughter.

Pick-a-Pig and/or Pick-a-Dog is/are designed by Torsten Landsvogt with art by Ari Wong, brought to playkind by Jolly Thinkers, available in the US from Gryphon Games and is recommended for 1-5 players, age 8 and older.

Scrabble Electronic Catchphrase is a “refreshed” version of classic Catchphrase. The colors are different. The words and phrases that you try to get people to guess are new. But the game is the same wonderful party game it has always been.

We wrote about it 2002, and again in 2005. It was refreshed once more in 2010. And now again in 2012. It looks more refreshed now than. And what proves to be even more refreshing is that it’s the same game, and just as fun as it was 10 years ago when we first reviewed it – as follows (refreshed):

The game itself is readily understood because it is in fact a combination of hot potato and password. You try to get your team to guess the word or phrase on the LCD display (now backlit and easy to read). In the mean time, a timer is sounding. As soon as anybody on your team guesses correctly, you hand it off to the next player, who is on the other team. Meanwhile, the timer, the other player, and the other team are all getting more frantic. As soon as they guess it, they hand it off, etc., etc., et not much more cetera, because the timer isn’t very long, and when it goes off, if your team happen to be the one that’s holding it, the other team gets the point.

You have to press a button to tell the computer that the other team won (a good opportunity to manifest sportspersonlike behavior whilst massaging more salt into your conceptual wound). When the timer runs out, it buzzes two annoying times, rubbing in both victory and defeat. The next round begins with the selection of a new category, or not. And so it goes, until one team reaches 7 points. A brief musical fanfare proclaims the end of the game.

This game is most definitely fun. Way more fun than you think you could get out of an electronic gadget. The hot potato part adds tension and makes scoring feel very easy and natural. Because you don’t get points for guessing correctly (you just pass the pod to next player), the focus remains on the complete round of play rather than on a single correct guess. This makes the whole game even more fun. Because your team is working together to guess (yes, this is one of those more-the-merrier games that could easily accommodate twenty or even more players), there’s a wonderful sense of teamwork that transcends individual performance, again making the game even more fun. Being able to select a new category at the beginning of each round provides a good break, adds a bit of information, a sense of control, and is totally optional. And there are so many words and phrases (now 1500), and it’s all so elegantly designed that you don’t need to come up with variations to keep it fun, but, if you want to, there’s nothing stopping you. Younger kids might have difficulty with some of the vocabulary, but if you’re playing with a mixed age group, you don’t need to get so serious about the competition that you can’t find a way to make the game fun for everyone.

Word Bits is recommended for 2-4 players. We played it with 8. It’s also recommended for players 8 and up. Our youngest was 10, and our oldest belonged to the order Septuagenarian. And it was fun. In fact, it was major fun.

You get four letter dice. And, thought it is only mildly relevant, I must add that these are exceptionally lovely letter dice, amber-colored, embossed with letters of a pleasingly Victorian-like, serif-ish font, slightly rounded for extra rollability; accompanied by a deck of what can only be called “category cards.” Each of these cards describe, as you might rightly assume, a category, e.g.: Author, Sport, Anything About a Building. The number in the center of each category card indicates how many dice are to be used, from 1 to, as you probably already assumed, 4.

A card is turned over. The appropriate number of dice are thrown. And the first player to announce (or, in our case, yell out) a word that: 1) fits the category, and 2) contains all the letters indicated by the dice, keeps that card. You can play until all the cards have been used. Or you can stop at any pre-arranged number of cards or when somebody has to go to the bathroom. The player with the most cards, if you care about these things, wins. We generally don’t care about such things, especially when the game is so easy to learn, involves everyone, and is so significantly fun.

Elegant game design by Dr. Reiner Knizia. Elegant art by Alvin Madden. Easy to learn. Durable materials. Right-sized package. Fun for the few or many.

Chronology is the second game we’ve found Major Fun-worthy that’s about knowing when things happened. Though the topic is similar, the gameplay experience is delightfully different.

There are 429, double-sided “event cards.” Each card, as advertised, describes an event. Below the event, in satisfyingly large numbers, is the date in which that event occurred.

The cards are designed so that as long as they are in the box they came in, you can’t see the dates. Clever, in deed.

To begin the game, each player takes the first card in the box, reads it aloud (just the event, not the year), and then places the card in front of her on the table. For added fun, and to get players in the mood of the game, we read the events as they were drawn, asked everyone to guess the date, and then placed the card, face-up, in front of us. It was a free guess, but got us ready to play.

After the first round, the game continues in earnest, or wherever you happen to be playing. The first player takes an event card, reads it to the player on her left, and that player points either to the right or left of the card already in front of him, depending on when, before or after the date on that card, he thinks that event occurred. If correct, he gets to put that card in his timeline. He then picks the next card, reads it to the player to his left, and on, and on.

As the game progresses, each player’s timeline grows longer and, hopefully, longer; the goal being to be the first player to accumulate 10 cards, all in time order. But, the more cards, the more difficult the challenge. If a player is incorrect, the next player guesses, and on and on until someone guesses correctly, or it returns to the player who drew that card in the first place.

The game is very easy to learn. There is just enough luck involved to keep everyone interested. The rules are simple, so it takes only a few minutes to get everyone under play. The game works as well with a bunch of players as it does with only two, and, depending on the depth and brilliance of between-turn conversations, takes about a half-hour to play. Or an entire evening.

Designed by Jane Hinton-Ruemmele, Chronology is available from Buffalo Games.

And now, from the makers of the Major Fun award-winning Anomia, we have Duple, a party game, using game play that is similar in many significant aspects to the aforementioned Major Fun award-winning Anomia, but different in a non-categorized, word-finding, vocabulary-searching kid of way – a difference of profound enough significance to make Duple a game that deserves its own review, as if it were an unprecedented invitation to fun, which, as a matter of fact, it is.

There are many cards.

Sixty-four of them are letter cards. Letter cards have, as you probably already conjectured, letters on them. One letter each. They also have symbols on them – one of eight different kinds. After you’ve set everything up and started actually playing, taking turns picking and turning over cards from the draw decks, the moment you notice that your card bears the same symbol as someone else’s card, you find yourself in a head-to-head race to be the first to utter, mention, or shout out a word of five or more letters that has both your letter and the letter on your opponent’s card. Thus catalyzing great attention-paying and moments of death and transfiguration.

But wait, there’s more. In addition to the letter cards, there are the category cards. Categorically speaking, this impact of these cards is to excruciate the intellect by forcing you not only to race to find a word of five or more letters containing both of the letters on the cards of matching symbol, but also restricting acceptability to words of that particular category. Also note, there are two kinds of category cards: thirteen have categories on them, and four cards don’t. These four are known as “blank” cards. Should you draw a blank card, you get to assert your strategic creativity and make your own category for that particular nonce, until another category card appears. There is also a category card that says “no category,” in which event there is as you would assume, no category at all, at all.

But wait again for the more: the wild cards. The wildness of these cards is indicated by each of them having a combination of two different symbols. No letters. No categories. No blankness. Just symbols. Two, as I said, different symbols. Thus, instead of looking for two letter cards with matching symbols, should you happen to notice that one of the symbols on a wild card is the same as that on your letter card, you must, with out further ado at all, seek out a player whose card bears the other symbol on the wild card – not the symbol that matches the symbol on your letter card, mind you. No, not at all that symbol.

And then there’s that particularly pernicious, and more than mildly exacerbating wild card bearing the words “All Play,” indicating that all players, not just those whose symbols match, must race to be the first to announce a word containing all the letters currently displayed.

There’s more. But the most more is the joyous intensity you will be experiencing, the constant engagement, the challenge, the, perhaps, yelling, the sheer Majorness of fun.

3-6 players, 10 or older. OK, maybe 7 if that guy absolutely has to play.

Major Fun likes things that start simple. They don’t have to stay simple, but they have to start off that way. All kinds of fun and beautiful complexities emanate from very simple things: snowflakes, Mandelbrot sets, and wine are just a few.

Pluckin Pairs (from R&R Games) is another.

Take the rule sheet for Pluckin Pairs. A single sheet of paper contains the components, the rules, and the credits ON ONE SIDE. And on the other side? The same information. In the same language. As long as you can read English, it doesn’t matter which side of the rules you read. You are going to learn this game.

Makes it hard on a game reviewer to condense something like that.

In short:

There are 150 picture cards (double-sided; different picture on each side). 11 cards go to the table. Players have 90 seconds to make 5 secret pairs. These pairs are recorded on a score pad. The one remaining picture is called the “Bad Apple.”

At the end of 90 seconds, the players reveal their pairs (best to do this one at a time in some order). You score one point for each player who made a pair the same as you BUT (and you had to know there would be a big BUT in here somewhere) you get no points if EVERYONE made the same pair. So, if no one has your pair: 0 points. If everyone has your pair: 0 points. If a few people have your pair: you get that many points (each of those players get that many points).

Remember how I mentioned that the picture cards are double sided? Flip them over and play again! Play 6 total rounds and tally the scores.

The 90 seconds you have to arrange the pictures into pairs is often maddening. It’s not much time and it’s hard to not pick the most obvious pairs. One round we had a locomotive and a train track come up. Do you avoid the obvious because everyone else will go with the obvious? Do you go with the obvious, knowing that others will avoid the obvious? Those decisions are a lot of fun, but the joy to be found in Pluckin Pairs is in the sharing. The phrases that will never get old are, “Oh come on!! SOMEONE should have made that pair!!” and “What were you thinking?”

The pictures are captivating and evocative. The game play is fast and humorous. What’s not to like?

Major Fun can’t find a thing. Play it.

For 3-8 players, ages 12+

Pluckin Pairs  designed by Stephen Glenn. © 2012 by R&R Games, Inc.

If you have ever played a party game like Cranium you know that some clues work better with some methods of performance. If your clue is “Birthday” then humming a few bars of a certain copyrighted song will elicit an answer faster than if you have to mold something in clay.

Pick n Choose sets out to capitalize on those inequalities.

Like Cranium, Pick n Choose provides many ways to give clues to your teammates. You can draw, sculpt (with clay or wire), mime, hum, clown, provide key words, or ask a trivia question. The game comes with a thick deck of word cards. Each card has the target word and nine ways to give clues. Each type of clue has a different point value.

For example: For the word “nightmare” a drawing would earn you 40 points, a clay sculpture 140 points, a wire sculpture 150 points, and a 2-word clue earns a scant 10 points. Choosing the right method of clue is tricky. You have to balance between what you can actually accomplish and the number of points you need.

At the beginning of a round, the active player draws 5 cards and places them face-down on the table. When the timer starts, you flip over a card, announce the clue method and then try to get your team to guess the word. You may pass at any time and come back to the card, but you must always use the same method that you first chose. You may use a different method for each card. When time runs out, your opponents have the opportunity to steal a word that you did not finish.

Pick n Choose also comes with a spinner. The spinner has all nine categories and three sections labeled “-100 Points.” At the beginning of your turn you may spin the arrow and use that method for ALL of your cards. You receive double points for each successful card. If you land on “-100 Points” then you subtract 100 from your round total (an incentive to do the highest value clues). This becomes a good way to catch up (or take an intimidating lead…)

Risk taking is encouraged but success is almost completely up to the choices made by the active player. The timer is generous, but you can’t think too long. Players can go with their strengths in order to get some points on the board or stretch a bit to take a commanding lead.

I especially liked the variations for 2 and 3 players. 2 players work collaboratively to reach 400 points within 4 rounds of play. For 3 players, a neutral player takes turns with guessing for each of the other two. Although the game is best suited as a party game for lots of players, the 2 and 3 player variations are still engaging ways to pass the time.

The rules are crisp and clear. They fit on one side of a single sheet. On the back is a guide for the nine clue methods: what is allowed and not allowed for each one. All in all, the mechanics are incredibly intuitive and you’ll have little problem picking up the game and having Major Fun right away.

For 2-8 players, ages 14+

Pick ‘n’ Choose designed by M.H. Ribeiro. © 2011 by MHR Games.

Bragging rights are perhaps the single most valuable commodity in any competition. Blue ribbons? Great bookmarks. Trophies? Lots of space for dust. Olympic gold medals? There’s not really that much gold in them. Cash prizes? You’ll probably blow it on rounds of drinks and a coterie of flunkies who you pay to listen to ALL YOUR BRAGGING!! The economy can devalue money in a hurry but bragging can be treasured forever.

Ticked Off takes great pride in being the ultimate forum for competitive souls to put their money where their mouths are. Of course, where goes the money so go the feet, and Ticked Off provides ample opportunity for players to savor the sweet sweet taste of victory as well as the cheesy toe-jam of failure.

In short, Ticked Off is a party game similar to Scattergories: given a category, how many examples can you come up with in a short period of time? But Ticked Off cranks up the pressure by forcing the players to bid on how many items they can list. Using a wheel of numbers from 1 – 20, players bid on how many examples they can list for the revealed category. For the player who bids highest, scoring is an all or nothing situation—if the player lists the number of examples they bid, he or she gets a hefty score. If the player fail to reach the bid, NO POINTS!

Points are awarded like Boggle and Scattergories: players read their lists and cross off any shared answers. Remaining unique answers are worth one point. First player to 50 wins. If the player who won the bid succeeds in writing a list of items that equals his or her bid then that player receives 2 points for each unique answer.

For example: if my bid of 13 was the highest and the category was “Actresses Starring in TV Comedies” then I need to write the names of 13 actresses who have starred in TV comedies before the timer runs out. If I get 13 written then I can earn points. If I write 12 then I get nothing (although my list could diminish the scores of the other players).

There is no way I would get any points. Not that I can’t think of actresses, but the timer sings an increasingly frantic song and there is only so much I can write in the time it gives. Turns out that just writing 13 names—even 13 words—is pretty tough in the time that is given. More on the timer in a bit…

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!! As if there wasn’t enough to think about, it turns out there is a good deal of strategy to Ticked Off thanks to one last twist. During the bidding, only one category card is revealed, but just before the timer is started a second category card is revealed and players can choose between the two. So if I bid on “Actresses Starring in TV Comedies” and the second category is “Baby Toys” I now have to decide which is my better category AND what the other players might be choosing. A great strategy turned out to be choosing the category that no one wanted because you were guaranteed points.

The rules for Ticked Off are short, clear, colorful, and snarky. It was refreshing to read rules that did not sound like the dosage instructions on a bottle of cough syrup. The rules encouraged smack talk and extolled the pleasures of lording your trivia knowledge over your fellow opponents.

Unfortunately I have to return to the issue of the timer. When it worked, the timer really enhanced the experience BUT the bloody thing was maddeningly touchy. The volume came and went. It often took several attempts to start. Lastly, the time varied but it was unclear if this was intentional. I used my watch to time several cycles. They varied from 37 seconds to just under 90 seconds. Some of the times seemed very odd (37?) which made me think that this was a wiring issue and not a matter of design. The short cycles were so short that it was physically impossible to write more than 10 to 12 items—a problem when you bid 15 or so. I’m hoping that this was a problem unique to the game we were testing.

Fortunately, the game itself was so Major Fun that we could overlook this technical difficulty. I think if you start to play this game you’ll quickly improvise your own timer just to keep playing.

For 3-10 players, ages 13+

Ticked Off designed by Ted Alspach. © 2011 by R&R Games.