Sides is a hilarious cooperative party game. In many ways it is the love child of Name That Tune and Password.
Playing as a team, how many magic words can you all score before you run out of letters? You do this together… but you do it by picking sides.
A line of seven letters sits before you. One side is a team of two, the Investigators. They must guess a magic word based on clues the Witnesses give. Only only clue is allowed at a time and the clue must begin with the letter at the end of either side of the line. “My clue is 7 letters long and begins with B.”
Investigators who listen closely each round have access to way more information than that one single clue, though, because the witnesses must openly discuss and debate whose clue works best.
Two groups, one team. Two letters, one magic word. Do your best to see things from many different sides.
Sides
Designer: Cédrick Caumont, François Romain
Art / Graphic Design: Cédrick Caumont, Adrien Journel
Movie Night! You and your friends have gathered to enjoy a flick at the cineplex. But which one? Can you find one you will all agree to watch?
You scan the listings and realize you don’t know any of these films. Rebel Panda? Kung Fu Soup? Duck Without a Cause?? What are these movies?
Fortunately, you can always rely on the two critics: Polly Positive, and The Grumpy Guy. And look, they reviewed the same movie!
But which movie is it? Somehow, the title of the movie is missing from their reviews. It’s not clear which picture they are both talking about.
Is it Interview In the Hat? The Cat Alone?? Maybe Home with the Vampire?
Guided by the reviews, each of you tries to sort it out by process of elimination. Only one movie at the cineplex can be THE ONE. The rest, clearly, are Not That Movie!
***
Not That Movie is a cooperative Party game. Each round, players work together to determine which mixed up movie title the critics have described through process of elimination.
At the end of 5 rounds, are you an epic flop or worthy of an Academy Award?
Four clue words on four leaves. Can your teammates use these clues to select and arrange four square donut-shaped cards so their keywords line up?
So Clover is a cooperative word association game. Talk it through and look for a common thread. It will take more than luck to make the right connections.
Tune in to explore the game and learn why we think it is chock full of Major Fun!
Here are three circles and a square… Can you make a toaster? Or a banana?
Working from a common set of shape dice, can you create a simple drawing, hoping others can select your magic word from a grid of cards?
Artbox is a game about perception. How to say a lot with a little. And much like negative space in a painting, what you leave out helps define what everyone gets to see.
Listen in to explore this wonderful game of drawing and deduction!
Similo is a cooperative game of characters, communication, and deduction. Can you guide your team to the secret character in a grid of cards using only other character cards as clues? A vertical clue means the card is similar to the secret character. A horizontal clue means the card is different. Each round the pressure mounts, because the team has to remove more cards from the grid!
Similo comes in three flavors. You can play with people from history, myth, and storybook legend. If you’re up for a real challenge, you can even combine decks!
Similo is a springboard into the minds of everyone at the table. It provides a puzzle and laughs in equal measure. That’s a sure sign of Major Fun.
Dekalko is a drawing game that is not a drawing game.
Everyone must get others to guess a picture without seeing the picture itself. How you get there requires a quick hand, a pen, and almost no artistic skill.
That’s because Dekalko is a tracing game! The lines are right there for you to draw. Which ones are important? Which ones can you leave out?
And that’s where the magic of the game begins. You don’t have to draw like a professional artist to learn how to see like one.
Listen in to explore the game and learn how Dekalko takes a possible point of stress and turns it into an opportunity for Major Fun.
Designer: Tim W.K. Brown Publisher: Breaking Games 2 or more players 15 minutes ages 8+ MSRP $20
Bubble Wrap… Instant Coffee… Processed Cheese… The Zamboni
Do you know which came first? Can
you put these inventions in the right order? The name of the game says it all.
There are 80 large and wonderfully
illustrated invention cards.
The front of each card is red and
shows the invention. The back of each card is blue and contains the year of the
invention and some fun facts about it. The range of years spans from the 1890’s to the 1970’s.
Each player or team gets a set of
player chips numbered first, second, third, and fourth.
A bank of scoring tokens will be
used after each round.
Each round, four inventions will
be on display, red side face up.
Your task is to place your first
chip on the invention that was invented the earliest, following on in numerical
order until you place your fourth chip on the invention you think was invented
most recently.
Once all chips are placed, flip
the cards to reveal the years for each invention and wait for the chorus of
cheers and moans.
Now we score.
I like to put the cards in
chronological order before revealing the chips to see who scores. It builds a
bit more tension and prompts some discussion as you see the small timeline you’ve created this round.
Any player or team that has a
numbered chip on an invention in the correct order earns a scoring token worth
1 point. If you’re
wrong, sorry! Better luck on the next one.
If you’re feeling frisky, on the
next rounds you can bet your scoring tokens in addition to your player chips.
But don’t get
too cocky. If you’re
wrong, you lose those points!
The player or team with the most
points after five rounds wins.
There are no lack of games, especially
in the party game arena, that ask players to think about time and chronology.
Familiarity and context set Order
of Invention apart from the crowd.
The inventions in the game are small
and often eclectic things we know. They are not monumental items, but each in
their own way has had some impact on the world. This is history on a small
scale – a relatable scale, because the inventions are familiar.
The game asks us to place four items
in context with each other.
“Processed
cheese must be before bubble wrap, right? And the Zamboni must come later since
it’s a gas
powered vehicle… but later than bubble wrap? And what about instant
coffee? Didn’t the astronauts drink that?”
The heart of fun comes from the
conversations these items spur on between us.
And that dialogue is inspired by the fact that the items are part of our lives. We can place the inventions in our own frame of reference, in our own context, first. And that allows us to enjoy the game in a way that’s markedly different than games that focus on big historical events or famous people or inventions.
Order of Invention is most
certainly Major Fun for groups of almost any size and players of all ages. But
it can also be a blast with just two. Not many games can span that range and
hold up well in both situations.
The subtle but important choice to
focus on the eclectic flotsam and jetsam of our modern world makes the game
shine. And, win or lose, it will bring players back to the table wondering what
crazy mix of items you’ll get
each time you play.
Written by: Stephen Conway
Special Note:
This review appears in the Summer 2019 issue of Casual Game Insider Magazine.
CGI publishes a wonderful selection of articles and reviews on a quarterly basis. In 2019, a Major Fun review will be featured in the next several issues.
The Spiel, Major Fun and CGI share a common goal: opening doors to the wider world of play. We hope this cross promotion will invite more people into the game community.
Somewhere in the universe, wombats gather in parties to find a champion. All creatures are welcome, facing challenges ridiculous and sublime. In fact every time they play, the challenges will change since the players themselves shape them. A word, a memory, a drawing, a gesture, even a song could be the key to unlock the heart of the judge.
Wombattle is a whacktastic party game driven by an unexpected dexterity element and whimsically weird art
There are two key
elements to Wombattle: the throwing board and wombat cards
The throwing board is
actually the game box with an insert covered with colored holes. The lid of the
box is nested vertically behind and serves as a backboard/backstop.
The 16 double sided
wombat cards will inspire each challenge during the game.
Each card depicts a
wombat and other friendly animals engaged in various activities. The wombat
might be doing mundane tasks like grocery shopping and hanging pictures. Then
again, the wombat might be cliff diving or landing on the moon. Packed with
little details, each card has a Richard Scarry-esque quality to it, inviting
the viewer to look again to discover new parts of the scene. It’s impossible to
overstate the how the whimsy and charm of the artwork helps create the world of
the game.
Each round in Wombattle,
players will face a challenge set by the judge (a fellow player). The shape of
the challenge is set by a feat of dexterity, a wombat card, and the imagination
of the judge
The feat of dexterity
determines the category for the round. The judge bounces a marble off the
backstop and into the grid on the throwing board. The hole where the marble
comes to rest has a color and the color of the hole determines the category:
Arts, Movement, Bravery, and Me-me-me.
Once you have the
category, the judge selects a wombat card. The wombat card and the category
will now combine in the mind of the judge to create a challenge.
The judge presents the
card to the group and, based on the category and some aspect of the scene shown
on the card, crafts a challenge that connects the two.
Each player will do his
or her best to face the challenge and the judge will select a winner. That
player will place an obstacle cone in the throwing board.
Then the players vote for
the solution they enjoyed the most. These votes will be tallied at the end.
The game continues with a
new player serving as judge each round
until one player has placed all his or her obstacle tokens into the board.
The general insanity and collective sense of fun
Wombattle creates makes the game a wonderful experience.
The categories themselves are a mix of standard
party game fare (drawing or gestures) and elements that are fresh. Bravery?
Come up with something memorable or daring. Me-me-me? A challenge that relates
to the judge in some way.
Players themselves set the boundaries of the game
from round to round; it’s a negotiation, a dance that creates a safe space for
everyone to have fun. It’s an unexpected and wonderful risk – to leave so much
room in the game for players to explore and define the limits of the game.
And in some ways, this makes Wombattle more
activity than game.
But that’s ok.
Wombattle is focused on fun, first and forever. It’s an arena for laughter and silliness.
Wombattle embodies an essential element that inspires the Major Fun Award: the simple joy of play. This joy is open to everyone. Any time, anywhere. Wombattle gives us permission to be playful. And it deflects attention away from winning. If you’re playing to win Wombattle, you should be playing a different game. Wombattle is a vehicle for laughter and fun and a reminder to not take yourself or the game too seriously.
To this end, each player writes down a reward they will give (a high five?, a compliment?, a cookie?, a hug?) and places it in the box. The winner will draw one and the player with the most votes will, too. It might not be a paragon of sophisticated game design but Wombattle is a work of demented genius. It soars because it is a source for the creative semi-structured joy we discover through play.
Written by: Stephen Conway
Special Note:
This review appears in the Spring 2019 issue of Casual Game Insider Magazine.
CGI publishes a wonderful selection of articles and reviews on a quarterly basis. In 2019, a Major Fun review will be featured in the next several issues.
The Spiel, Major Fun and CGI share a common goal: opening doors to the wider world of play. We hope this cross promotion will invite more people into the game community.
Have you ever been in The Zone? Maybe you found it playing music. Everyone in the orchestra playing in perfect time. That pure sweet sound is impossible to forget. Or you found it on the basketball court – each teammate anticipating the moves of the next – it’s like poetry – no one can stop you and no one can miss. It’s special, being in The Zone – a moment of perfect harmony – being totally in synch with everyone around you. Special because The Zone is so hard to find and special because it’s so hard to stay in The Zone once you do! If you get there even for a few fleeting seconds, it’s like magic. The Zone leaves its mark on you and you’ll strive to find it again and again.
The Mind is a cooperative card game that wants its players to find The Zone…and stay there as long as they can! Over the course of several rounds, your team must find a common wavelength to play numbered cards in order to a single stack hoping to reach your goal.
The Mind has a deck of 100 cards numbered 1-100.
There are also 5 life cards and 3 throwing star cards.
The Mind is played over 8, 10, or 12 rounds, depending on the number of players. The goal for your team is to reach the end of the final round with at least one life remaining. If your team runs out of lives, you lose.
In round one, each player gets one card. Round two, two cards and so on. A round ends when all cards have been played.
One at a time, players will add a single card to a central stack, trying to play all cards in ascending numerical order a la Solitaire.
We’re in Round 2. My hand is 8, 22. Your hand is 15, 73. We want to the stack to go 8-15-22-73. If a card is played out of order, any cards skipped over are shown, discarded, and the team loses a life.
Beyond simple, right? And, yes, even now I can sense some eyes rolling.
But there’s one key element I have yet to mention and this is….
While playing The Mind, you cannot communicate verbally with your teammates! You cannot indicate the numbers on your cards with gestures or sounds! You must communicate mentally with your teammates and find a way to play every card dealt out for the round in order to the stack.
It will seem crazy at first – perhaps to the point that you might question whether this is actually a game.
But then it will happen. Your team will find The Zone. Somehow, some way, your team will navigate through a minefield of consecutive cards. I play the 68, followed by 69 and 70 from the next two players and you’ll feel the magic. When, not if, this happens, there will be smiles and cheers all around.
How does this happen? What transforms The Mind from a game of Silent Solitaire to a game of telepathic synchronicity?
The Mind asks you to play based on reading your fellow players and not the cards.
While direct communication isn’t allowed, we all transmit a wealth of subtle social clues and cues. The closer we all pay attention to what is happening at the table, the more we are able to observe and interpret. It’s like a new language your team creates and learns as you play.
A subtle glance from the player to your left. A nuanced placement of cards from the player on your right. These things take on meaning and help your team connect and occasionally find The Zone. And when you do, win or lose, there are few feelings better to experience at the game table.
The Mind is fueled by a powerful kind of playfulness – the joy of playing together in harmony, in synch. Each new game and each new team will present a new set of challenges, a new language to learn, a new opportunity to create those moments where everything lines up. And even when it all goes horribly wrong. No, especially because things often go horribly wrong, it makes those moments in The Zone ones you’ll remember long after you leave the table. Simple, ingenious, and consistently compelling, The Mind drills deep into the essence of Major Fun.
CGI publishes a wonderful selection of articles and reviews on a quarterly basis. In 2019, a Major Fun review will be featured in the next several issues.
The Spiel, Major Fun and CGI share a common goal: opening doors to the wider world of play. We hope this cross promotion will invite more people into the game community.
