Top Twelve for 2010

This year, we have twelve games that have made it to the top of our 2010 list. Many of them are marketed especially for children, and yet have proven to be at least as much fun for adults. The rest are marketed for adults, and, oddly enough, depending on the kids, can prove at least as much fun for them as well. (click on the name of the game to see our review)

Not just for kids:

Rory’s Story Cubes

Rory’s Story Cubes is a set of nine dice. Each die has a different image on each side, and each die is different from the others. All in all, this gives you 54 different images and close to ten million possible combinations. Gamewright has added its usual stamp of quality, housing the dice in a wonderful little box with a folding magnetic lid, giving the game a look that complements the treasure it can so easily become.  Making and telling stories is a valued and venerable play form. And Rory’s Story Cubes is a wonderfully nonthreatening invitation to that art. Play it by yourself. Play it friends. Play it with family. Play it at a party. By all means, play it.

We reviewed the original Word on the Street a while back. It’s major fun. We wanted to see how Word on the Street, Jr. held up in comparison. Specifically, we wanted to see if the junior set would engage adults and children at the same time. Sound impossible for a word game? Sound like two great tastes that have no business being in the same kitchen let alone the same plate? THINK AGAIN!! It’s a hoot.

Sumo Ham Slam

I’ve generally found that if you are going to do silly, you might as well go all out. What’s the point of dressing up as a pirate if you’re only going to go through the day saying your same old innocuous pleasantries in your predictable Midwestern mumble? Sometimes you just have to go for the gusto.

Gamewright goes for the gusto with their hamster sumo wrestling game Sumo Ham Slam. That’s right, sumo hamsters. And if the thought of crashing your hamster into your opponent’s hamster until one of you falls over or out of the ring doesn’t bring a smile to your face then remember this: at the start of the match, all players must chant SUMO HAM SLAM!! And there are magnets. And you feed your hamsters to make them heavier.

If you look for Haba’s Dancing Eggs game, you’ll see photos of kids running amok with giggly silliness. If you look at our review, however, you see a group of adults, similarly amok. This is to make a point: though Dancing Eggs is designed to be a great, highly physical, significantly delightful game for kids; if adults get to play, it’s at least as much fun for them to play.

Creationary is the first LEGO party game. It’s not like any other LEGO Game, yet it’s the best way to discover what LEGO Games are all about.

First of all, it’s great fun. It’s very easy to learn (especially if you know how to play Pictionary). It’s invites play (especially if you know LEGOs). And it’s completely open-ended. You can pretty much change everything about the game.

Before I go any further, and just in case you were wondering, Spot It is Major Fun.

Any further questions? Yes? 2-8 players. Another question? You in the front. Kids, of course, probably even as young as 7. Adults? You betcha. And yes, it’s a game for kids, a game for families, a party game for kids, families, and a very welcome filler game for grown-up gamers. And yes, still Major Fun. More Major Fun for kids or adults or families? Nope. In all cases, the fun is major. In deed.

Wits & Wagers is a Major Fun award-winning game – a Keeper, in fact. So now we have Wits & Wagers Family, which, as you might correctly conclude, is a somewhat less complex version, designed to appeal to the whole family. Except for kids that are below the age of…what? 10? 8? 6? 4?

Use your make-believe, wipe-offable marker to write your hypothetical guess on your imaginary write-on, wipe-offable Answer Board. Then collect everyone’s similarly imaginary Answer Boards and organize them from low to high (or high to low). Ready to vote?  Great. Place one or two of your pretend “Meeples” (wooden, people-shaped playing pieces) of your choice – the larger one on your best guess, the smaller on your next best.

Wicketball

If you can kick a ball, you can play it. If you can roll a ball, throw a ball, bounce a ball, you can play it. You can play it in the sand. You can play it in the snow. You can play it in the dirt. You can play it like golf, you can play it like croquet, you can play it like both games simultaneously. You can play it with kids, you can play it with seniors, you can play it with kids and seniors and anybody who wants to play. You can create your own course. You can make it very hard. You can make it just easy enough to make you want to keep playing. You can play it seriously, you can play it for fun.

Not just for adults:

Sounds Like a Plan turns out to be everything you’d want to see in a Major Fun party game. It’s easy to learn. It takes maybe a half hour to play. And you spend most of the time laughing. As you can see, the cards are very cleverly written – the Advice cards easily as clever as the Plan cards. The die works brilliantly to keep the game unpredictable and fun. There are two other sides of the die: one is “Wild” which allows the Planner to select whatever kind of advice she wants to get; the other is called “Psychic.” When that turns up, the players have to guess which of the three To Do’s on the Plan Card the Planner would most likely select, and then come up with the most appropriate Plan for that To Do. OK. So there’s a certain element of luck there. In fact, there are certain elements of luck everywhere in the game – what side of the die turns up, what Advice Cards you get, what Plan Card is selected. All of which prove to provide exactly enough luck to keep anyone from taking anything about the game too seriously.

The category is “hotels.” You’re playing with Rocky. Everybody has already voted on how many of the four questions you’ll answer correctly. The first question is: “a motel with a number in its name.” You and Rocky count off: “one, two, three Sync Up!” You say “Motel 6,” Rocky says “Supper 8.” No points. So you’re on to the next question. “A luxury hotel.” Ready? “One, two, three, Sync Up!” And you both answer “The Four Seasons.” Fantastic! Four Seasons? How could you both come up with something so relatively obscure? What about Napa Valley’s Auberge de Soliel, for gosh sakes? So, anyway, congratulations. You get two points. Ready for the next question?

Oh, Really!™ is a party game for 3 up to 8 players or teams. Given the team possibility, Oh, Really! is a game that can easily provide anywhere from a half-hour to 90-minutes of thought- and laughter-provoking entertainment for your personal multitudes. And if some of that particular multitude happens to include those of the eight- or eighty-year-old variety so much more the potential fun of it all.

You get 160 cards, total. Each player gets three cards. Each card has two categories on it – like: “Cannot take off” and “Leisure activities for old people.” Or “Things you secretly do at work” and “Famous sportsmen.” Or “Things that itch” and “Presents for mommy’s widdle puddy tat.” (Actual categories from actual cards.) You get an electronic timer you can set to 5 or 8 seconds. And you get a cloth bag that everything fits into very nicely. It’s your turn to be Buzz Master. You pick any card, either category, and read it aloud. You start the timer. It beeps once. Everyone else takes a turn, each turn trying to come up with yet another example of the chosen category. Then the timer makes a polite, cymbal-crashing sound, and the card goes to whomever’s turn it is as a “token of failure.”

Rory’s Story Cubes is a Keeper!

Rory's Story Cubes

As you no doubt know, Rory’s Story Cubes has proven itself to be the kind of game the Major Fun award is here to let you know about. It’s easy to learn, engaging, it brings people together, encourages people to think and laugh together, it involves creativity and communication, empathy and collaboration.  It’s easy to store, easy to take everywhere, well-made, well-packaged, creative fun for everyone who plays it – young, old, young and old together.

Major Fun Keeper AwardAfter playing and playing Rory’s Story Cubes – with children and adults and younger children and older adults, in living rooms and dining rooms and restaurants and school rooms, we have all come to the same conclusion. It’s a Keeper.

It’s the kind of game that you’ll want to keep, so that you can share it with others.

It’s the kind of game you can make your own.

There are many ways to play it. The package gives us a good sample of some of them.  More can be found on the Rory’s Story Cubes website. The best are those that you invent together, with whomever you happen to be playing with. You don’t even have to make a story with them. Maybe you can take turns putting them in order and then explaining to everyone why you organized them that way. Or roll a die and explain to everyone why what you rolled is the most meaningful thing in the universe, and then take turns, each player rolling the another die and explaining why it is even more meaningful than the other. Or, roll three dice and then roll a fourth and explain how that die connects all three. Or, using three dice, take turns making up a story that is as close as you can get to being the opposite interpretation of what the three dice stand for.

In other words, it’s an opportunity for you to create your own games – free-form, open-ended, make-up-your-own-rules-as-you-go-along story-telling fun.

It’s a tool as much as it is a toy. You can introduce it to lighten people’s hearts and get them talking to each other. You can use it to break the tension during a meeting, to change the mood at a games party, to bring people together after dinner, to give people something constructive to do together.

The more people you play it with, the more ways you’ll find to play it. Rory’s Story Cubes is not even a game – it’s an invitation to genuine, creative, shared fun – the kind of fun that feels as good after you finish with it as it did when you were playing.

Oh, Really!

Oh, Really!™ is a party game for 3 up to 8 players or teams. Given the team possibility, Oh, Really! is a game that can easily provide anywhere from a half-hour to 90-minutes of thought- and laughter-provoking entertainment for your personal multitudes. And if some of that particular multitude happens to include those of the eight- or eighty-year-old variety so much more the potential fun of it all.

There are 200 “word cards” – nouns, actually, of a surprisingly wide range of seemingly arbitrary significance, such as: “Good Looks,” “Funerals” “Anti-Drug Laws,” “Hygeine” and “Beef.” I select a random five of the 200, because that’s what you’ll be doing as well. Then there’s a board, with five places for you to put your cards. Each of the five is marked with different symbol: &, #, !, *, and “+.” There are also 8 sets of “ranking cards,” one card in each set for each of the 5 different symbols.

One player or team places the 5 “word cards” face-up, on the board, one card in each space thoughtfully provided for it. Every team or player than arranges their 5 voting cards in order, from left to right, the leftmost indicating which “word card” should be ranked highest, the rightmost, least. Why any player or team would rank, for example, “Beef” higher than “Hygeine” is a mystery of sometimes impenetrable significance, which, of course, everyone else hopes to have solved.

After everyone has arranged their voting cards accordingly, each gets a point for every voting card that is in the same position as someone else’s – depending on which variation you are playing. But, regardless of which variation, the mechanics are the same: lay out 5 “word cards,” arrange the “ranking cards” indicating the order in which the “word cards” should be ranked.

There are three suggested variations: the “Partners” game, the “Free for All” game and the “Follow the Leader” game. Each, because of the way score is kept, encourages people to try to anticipate how others will think. In the first, each partner tries to guess how the other ranked the “word cards.” Each set of partners or partner teams takes a turn. After looking at a random selection of “word cards,” both partners or teams arrange their ranking cards, hoping that their partner will have arrived at the same ranking. Teams, of course, can discuss the reasons for cards to be ranked in whatever way they so choose (obviously,  our partners will be thinking “hygiene” comes before “beef,” but just as clearly they’ll think “good looks” deserves a higher ranking than “hygiene.” Or will they?). Once both have ordered their ranking cards, they reveal their decision, the partners (or partnering teams) get one point for each “word card” they’ve ranked the same (these cards are pushed forward to indicate that they are a successful match) and two points if all five cards are ranked the same.

In the “Free For All” version, first each player or team ranks the cards. One player is selected to be “Chooser.” The “Chooser” then selects one other to compare with, getting one point for each match. After they reveal their rankings, all the other players reveal theirs. If another player has more matches than the chosen player, that player gets two points, and the Chooser and Chosen get none.

In “Follow the Leader,” players take turns being the Chooser. After the Chooser selects the rankings, the other players try to match the Chooser’s rankings. The Chooser reveals her highest ranking card, and then each other player also reveals their highest ranking card. The game continues in this way, card by card, until all cards are revealed. Players score one point for each match, and the Chooser also scores one point for every card that is pushed forward (a match), including their own.

You can, of course, play a different variation every turn, or play one variation for the whole duration. If one pair of players or teams seems overly attuned, then it’s a good time to try a different variation. Success in any of the variations, however, depends on luck, familiarity, and a significant tad of clairvoyance.

Regardless of which variation you play, Oh, Really! is wonderfully funny fun. Fundamentally, it’s a silly game. There are no absolute criteria for anyone to say that anything deserves a higher ranking than anything else. So arguing is pretty much pointless. As is feeling that your success has anything to do with anyone’s intelligence. In sum, a pretty much perfect party game.

Oh, Really!, available from FindIt Games, was originally designed by Mike Petty. It first came to our attention seven years ago, when it was called “What’s it To Ya.”

In reviewing a draft of this review, Mike shared his perspective on the game. I think it is valuable enough to make us think about the game in a different, and somewhat brighter light. He writes:

“After playing for years with different people I can see what you’re saying about the senselessness of arguing about the value of the items.  From a philosophical standpoint we can probably never agree on rankings.  I will would point out, however, that practically speaking, we each have a ‘right answer’ in our minds as to the value of things and by that we make significant life choices. I think there is great value in recognizing this in ourselves and others. There’s value in discussing the differences between these ‘right’ rankings by which we live.  I don’t say that to take issue with what you’ve written. There’s no sense in telling a person how not to enjoy a party game!  I simply wanted to point out that what I have come to appreciate most about the game is that it can be taken seriously and very lightly.”

Spot It! is a Keeper!

We are always on the lookout for ways to empower players to make a game their own. We believe that if a game is strong enough so that players can change the rules to make the game more fun – whatever they consider fun to be – with whomever they’re playing, then we have a game that we want to hold on to for a long, long time.

It turns out that the Major Fun award-winning game Spot-It! is just such a game. This is at least partly because of a rather unique approach to the way the game is played. Rather than being a single game with variations, Spot It! consists of 4 rounds of play, each focusing on a different “mini party game.”

These mini-games are artfully constructed, each proving a little more challenging than the other. The first two mini-games are races, players competing to be the first to match a central card. In the final two games, the competition is a little more personal, especially with 3 or more players. Here the goal is to make another player lose by adding cards to his or her collection. Since there is always a match between any two cards, you can, if you’re fast enough, select which player you want to compete against. Generally, you want to make sure that the winning player doesn’t. Unless it’s a grudge match, in which it can get, in a silly kind of way, quite brutal.

Because each mini party game uses the same cards, the overall message of the game is that there are at least 4 different ways to play it. And if there are 4, there must be more.

And, in practice, there are far more – every time you play with a different age group or in a different setting (in a restaurant, in the kitchen, a classrooople and as few as 2. We’ve played it in the library and dining room, on the table and on the floor, and every tm, a senior center), you find yourself modifying the rules, just a tad. This works so well because the core concept is so strong. The deck of 55 cards, the 50 different symbols, designed so that any two cards will have one, and only one matching symbol; the added visual challenge presented by the different sizes of the symbols; the circular cards that fit so nicely in your hand – combine to create an extremely flexible tool for open-ended play. We’ve played Spot-It with a lot of different people – seniors, adults, teens, tweens, school-age kids, even pre-schoolers. We’ve played it with as many as 6 peime we’ve played it, we’ve played it just a little bit differently, and regardless of how we’ve played it, or where, or with whom, we’ve consistently found it to be fun.

Spot-It! is funtastic!

Sumo Ham Slam

I’ve generally found that if you are going to do silly, you might as well go all out. What’s the point of dressing up as a pirate if you’re only going to go through the day saying your same old innocuous pleasantries in your predictable Midwestern mumble? Sometimes you just have to go for the gusto.

Gamewright goes for the gusto with their hamster sumo wrestling game Sumo Ham Slam. That’s right, sumo hamsters. And if the thought of crashing your hamster into your opponent’s hamster until one of you falls over or out of the ring doesn’t bring a smile to your face then remember this: at the start of the match, all players must chant SUMO HAM SLAM!! And there are magnets. And your feed your hamsters to make them heavier.

Still no smile? Check the flesh around your mouth for facial paralysis. Go watch some Monty Python.

The game comes with a plastic wrestling ring, four hollow plastic hamsters, 40 “food pellet” chips, a die, and two magnetic wands. The wands slide under the surface of the wrestling ring and control the movement of your hamster. The die tells you what to do on your turn: Eat, Train, or Slam! You earn plastic pellets by eating and training (thus making your hamster heavier) and you earn victory points by wrestling when you roll a Slam! The first player to earn five victory points is the winner. To augment the verisimilitude of the sumo-like encounter, the manufacturer recommends substituting pennies or nickels for the lighter weight plastic pellets, thereby further adding to the gravity and humorously hefty hamsterness of it all.

Once all the food pellets (or coins) are consumed, the game becomes a constant series of sumo matches. Which is just as well because the real joy of the game comes from the silly, but absolutely necessary ritual of chanting SUMO HAM SLAM!! before each bout. And sumo wrestling hamsters are nothing without their rituals.

Well, maybe they are Major Fun.

Sumo Ham Slam was designed by Mary Jo Reutter with art by Dean MacAdam. © 2010 by Gamewright.

William Bain, Games Taster

Sync Up!

The category is “hotels.” You’re playing with Rocky. Everybody has already voted on how many of the four questions you’ll answer correctly. The first question is: “a motel with a number in its name.” You and Rocky count off: “one, two, three Sync Up!” You say “Motel 6,” Rocky says “Supper 8.” No points. So you’re on to the next question. “A luxury hotel.” Ready? “One, two, three, Sync Up!” And you both answer “The Four Seasons.” Fantastic! Four Seasons? How could you both come up with something so relatively obscure? What about Napa Valley’s Auberge de Soliel, for gosh sakes? So, anyway, congratulations. You get two points. Ready for the next question?

The game you’re playing is called Sync Up! And the fun you’re having is Major. It’s a party game for 3-6 teen-age and aboves. You play it in rounds. A round involves as many turns as it takes for each of you to get to play with a different partner. By the time you’ve played all the rounds, everybody has had one turn to play with everyone else. It could get confusing, which explains why you also get a special, erasable, Turn Tracker, with a special erasable marker with a special marker eraser on top.

Even though the play is highly cooperative, the game itself is competitive. Ultimately, despite your concerted efforts to be in “sync” with your partner, you win because of your individual score. Your score is determined by two things: how many questions you and your partner pro temp give the same answer to, and how precisely you can predict the number of questions a pair of players will answer the same. This keeps you involved when it’s not your turn to answer questions. You keep score by moving your pawns around and around a spiral track. For a tad bit more drama, some spaces on the track instruct you to keep your eyes closed when working with your partner.

In addition to the score board, the 6 pawns of 6 different colors, the erasable Turn Tracker and marker, and the 30 Make a Bet! cards, you also get the real treasure of the game – 226 double-sided category cards, each side with another category and 4 questions.

It’s the category cards that are key to the fun – so much so that you can have significant fun playing Sync Up! with nothing else but. In fact, if you and your friend both have Skype, you can play online! Our recommended approach: use both video and chat. The person with the category cards (let’s call her the “emcee”) offers a selection of 5 categories. Once a category is chosen, the emcee reads the first question, both players write their answers in the chat window (without hitting return). Then, when both are ready, they both hit return and reveal their answers. No, it’s not the entire, or even the real game. But it’s great fun.

Sync-Up was designed by Brian S. Spence, Garrett J. Donner, and Michael S. Steer; and published by USAopoly, Sync Up! Major Fun congratulations and gratitude to all.

Wits & Wagers Family

Wits&Wagers FamilyWits & Wagers is a Major Fun award-winning game – a Keeper, in fact. So now we have Wits & Wagers Family, which, as you might correctly conclude, is a somewhat less complex version, designed to appeal to the whole family. Except for kids that are below the age of…what? 10? 8? 6? 4?

Use your make-believe, wipe-offable marker to write your hypothetical guess on your imaginary write-on, wipe-offable Answer Board. Then collect everyone’s similarly imaginary Answer Boards and organize them from low to high (or high to low). Ready to vote?  Great. Place one or two of your pretend “Meeples” (wooden, people-shaped playing pieces) of your choice – the larger one on your best guess, the smaller on your next best.

The manufacturers suggest 8 as the youngest age. Did you write down the correct answer? Give yourself 1 point. Did you imagine yourself putting your Meeple on the correct answer? Your big Meeple? Give yourself 2 more points. Your smaller Meeple, one more point. Actually if you guessed 8 or lower you’d be OK, as long as no one got closer to the right answer than you. And, since there are two right answers, you could have Meepled 4 and still get the point(s).

Mark the circles on the fantasized score board to show everyone’s score. Ready for the next question?

That’s pretty much it, Wits & Wagers Family game-wise. You get 300 questions on 150, cute little narrow cards; 5 small markers, 5 different colored wooden Meeples (10 altogether – one large, one smaller), 5 Answer Boards, a scoreboard, and a clearly written and illustrated set of instructions which, even if you haven’t played the original game, you’ll be able to figure out in a paucity of minutes.

By the way, there are TWO correct answers to the minimal age question. According to the manufacturer, the answer is 8. According to us, 4. Of course our 4-year-old is a genius, and he had his genius mother to help him. He didn’t have any trouble guessing, since all you have to do is write a number, and, later, pick a number. Being correct was another question altogether – and if you’re 4, it doesn’t matter so much anyway. As long as you get to play.

Wits & Wagers Family is significantly fun. Major, even, fun-wise. It’s easy to learn, each round takes well under the expected attention span for even the youngest player. The scoring is quick and easy to remember. You can play as teams and it’s just as much fun as if everyone has their own Meeples. Most of the questions (e.g. “What percent of men have color blindness?) are obscure enough to encourage educated or totally misinformed guessing. Some (“How many teaspoons are in a tablespoon?”) are well within the range of common adult knowledge, but even then the game works, because you’re allowed to have the same answer as someone else and get all the recognition you so rightly deserve, and sometimes we adults have a strong need to be right.

Designed by Dominic Crapuchettes, with gently compelling art by Jacoby O’Connor and Shawn Wilson, funwise, Wits & Wagers Family is, like I said, just plain Major!

Creationary

Creationary is the first LEGO party game. It’s not like any other LEGO Game, yet it’s the best way to discover what LEGO Games are all about.

First of all, it’s great fun. It’s very easy to learn (especially if you know how to play Pictionary). It’s invites play (especially if you know LEGOs). And it’s completely open-ended. You can pretty much change everything about the game.

During our “Tasting” of the game, we were fortunate to have one player who had never really played with LEGOs. Fortunate, because it helped us appreciate how fundamentally fun the whole concept of LEGO Games can be – fun for people who love LEGOs, fun for people who don’t know anything about LEGOs.

First of all, you get the LEGO Dice. Actually, it’s a single die, but they call it “dice” anyway. The thing about the LEGO dice is that the faces are all replaceable. You can change them, and, in this way, change the game. Which is why you also get a couple extra LEGO Dice faces. You also get a lot of LEGO pieces. Most of them are the standard kind you’d expect to find in almost any set of LEGO bricks. Some are wonderfully non-standard, inviting invention. You also get 2 LEGO figures – a minifigure and a microfigure. The microfigure is too small to have moving parts, but not too small to feature that characteristically wonderfully playful, sometimes somewhat sinister expression. And then there’s a deck of cards. Three decks, actually, of different difficulty level. Each card shows four different pictures of four different categories of things that can be built: nature, vehicles, things, buildings.

When it’s your turn to do the building (as a single player, a couple or team), you throw the die to determine the category, and pick whatever level of difficulty you want to go for. It doesn’t matter what level you choose – if you’re playing for score you still only get one point if your creation is guessed correctly.

This is something you only find in LEGO Games and maybe among a few enlightened physical educators – the idea that people might actually choose to do something more challenging, not because they get more points for it, but simply because it is more fun.

The rules describe four different ways to play: one person builds and everyone else guesses, one person guesses and as many of four people build, two teams play simultaneously – each with one builder, and race to be the first to identify the object being built; and finally everybody plays as one team, racing against the clock – one player building, everyone guessing, seeing how many items they can identify before the time (whatever time they decide on) has elapsed.

We, of course, invented our own variations. Mine was not only to allow unlimited guesses and unmeasured time, but also to allow the builder to accompany her creation with sound effects, gestures, facial expressions, and full-body dramatizations, as needed. This not only made the game much easier for the LEGO-challenged, but also much funnier for everyone.

In addition to all 341 pieces, you get a sorting tray, which, given the intensity of having to build something as quickly as possible, proves to be a most constructive tool for the construction constructor. Of course, in the process of carting the game to someone else’s house everything falls out of the tray. But sorting is always fun, sort of, and a great way to start the next game. And, should you happen across any spare LEGO bricks from abandoned LEGO kits, you can give them a new and even more playworthy life as part of your Creationary collection.

Creationary was designed by LEGO Game designer, and initial conceptualizer of the whole, shall we say, concept of LEGO Games: Cephas Howard.

For more background about this post, please see LEGO Games – an Introduction

Spot It!

Before I go any further, and just in case you were wondering, Spot It is Major Fun.

Any further questions? Yes? 2-8 players. Another question? You in the front. Kids, of course, probably even as young as 7. Adults? You betcha. And yes, it’s a game for kids, a game for families, a party game for kids, families, and a very welcome filler game for grown-up gamers. And yes, still Major Fun. More Major Fun for kids or adults or families? Nope. In all cases, the fun is major. In deed.

It’s a card game. And the cards are round. Which turns out to be the perfect shape, considering. Considering what? Considering that you sit around the table, that everyone needs to look at the cards at the same time and see what’s on the cards without having to worry about which way is up, and that all the cards can fit into the palm of your hand, which sometimes they have to.

There are 55 cards. Each card has eight different symbols on it. There are more than 50 different symbols, and yet, given any two cards, one, and only one image will match.

The game is played as a series of four “mini-games.” The mini-games can be played in any order, but to play a complete game you have to play all four. Of course, you don’t have to play a complete game. Each one is fun enough. But all together, somehow the fun becomes, well, as they say, “Major.”

All the gamelets involve finding matching images. And in all, the object is to be the first. But each game introduces a different wrinkle. In one, you try to be the first to match a card that’s on the pile in the center of the table. In another, you try to find the match between the card in your hand and someone else’s. In one, you have to find the one match on one card that is the same on yours, in another, you have to find a match on anyone’s card before anyone finds a match on yours. In one you try to be the first to get rid of all your cards. In another, you try to have the most at game end. In yet others, the least.

There’s an online demo which, as advertised, amply demonstrates the perceptual challenge around which the games are built.

Spot It! is designed by Denis Blanchot and made available by the frequently-Major-Fun-award-winning Blue Orange Games. And it comes in a tin!

Sounds Like a Plan

You get 300 “Advice Cards,” 100 “Plan Cards,” 8 wooden pawns that look remarkably like pinless push pins, a die, and a board (that serves mostly for scoring – I guess you could call it a “scoring board”), and a set of rules. There’s a track around the edges of the board that goes from Start, and then after 44 spaces, Finish. The track looks like a cork board. Which makes the pawns look like push pins stuck into a cork board. Which is fun.

But, of course, the really fun part doesn’t come until you start playing the game.

Let’s start with a Plan. Which, in this game, begins with a Plan Card, which is, in fact, a To Do List. Each To Do List has three different To Do’s. For example:

  1. Build a tree house.
  2. Get a tattoo
  3. Tightope walk between two buildings.

Then you, the Planner, throw the die, which determines what kind of advice you’re looking for: the best advice, the worst advice, the kind of advice your grandma might give you, or the kind of advice you’d expect to get from a kid. The two other sides of the die are for something else.

Everybody has 6 cards, drawn from random from the many, many Advice Cards. Advice? Like:

  • Learn the law
  • Cover your mouth
  • Call an attorney
  • Take a large bag
  • Take lots of cash
  • Study architecture

The Planner selects which of the three To Dos she wants to, uh, do. Like “Get a tattoo.” And the die tells everybody that she’s looking for the kind of advice her grandmother would give. Which card would you select?

So you select that card. And everyone else (there can be up to 8 players) selects one of theirs. Then everyone gives you their advice – which is always fun. You look at the cards. You put them in order, from, according to your lights and the dictates of the die, best to worst (or worst to best, depending). There are 5 scoring positions in the middle of the board. You place each card, in order, starting at the top (which is worth 5 points), and ending at the 1-point-worth position. Players whose card was chosen move accordingly, one space for each point. And then it’s someone else’s turn to be Planner.

The players who got to give advice all replenish their hands. And the next person gets to be Planner.

Sounds Like a Plan turns out to be everything you’d want to see in a Major Fun party game. It’s easy to learn. It takes maybe a half hour to play. And you spend most of the time laughing. As you can see, the cards are very cleverly written – the Advice cards easily as clever as the Plan cards. The die works brilliantly to keep the game unpredictable and fun. There are two other sides of the die: one is “Wild” which allows the Planner to select whatever kind of advice she wants to get; the other is called “Psychic.” When that turns up, the players have to guess which of the three To Do’s on the Plan Card the Planner would most likely select, and then come up with the most appropriate Plan for that To Do. OK. So there’s a certain element of luck there. In fact, there are certain elements of luck everywhere in the game – what side of the die turns up, what Advice Cards you get, what Plan Card is selected. All of which prove to provide exactly enough luck to keep anyone from taking anything about the game too seriously.

It’s most definitely the kind of game you can play with anyone of 2-digit age. It’s clearly as much fun to play it with your family as it is with a bunch of friends. And the fun is most clearly Major.

Designed by Colleen McCarthy-Evans and Joyce Johnson with art by Lisa Goldstein, Sounds Like a Plan turns out to be yet another Major Fun game from Gamewright.

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