Such&Such

Such&Such is a guessing game in which every question has two answers. As in: "In the Old Testament, Israel is referred to as the land of...." Two which you would answer Milk&Honey. Obviously. Or "Stars of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf." Hmmm. Elizabeth, obviously, Taylor, and Richard, of course, Burton. Or "Passive & active car passenger restraints." Would that be seat belts and air bags? Why most definitely it would.

You need two teams, so you'll want at least 4 people. But the more, potentially, the merrier. When it's your team's turn, you select one of the 250, double-sided cards, turn the timer over, and go through each of the five different clues while your team frantically attempts to answer each with the appropriate Such&Such.

Now, given all this pressure, it's only natural that your team might want to pass on one clue, or several, in the hopes of getting back to them with some new infusion of knowledge before the timer runs out. Whatever they don't get back to is given to the other team to guess.

One of our favorite parts of the game came from a wonderfully silly piece of rule-making. The manufacturers suggest that the team that is keeping time should "make a joyful noise" when the timer runs out. Well, we took it seriously, and some of our joyful noises resulted in significantly mirthful mayhem.

Everything works well in this game: the questions, for the most part, are entertaining and challenging as well as often surprising and subtle. The scoring device (write-on/wipe-off board and 5 pawns to indicate which questions are passed over) both effective and adequate. And the timer is 40 seconds when turned this way and that.

Not to mention the coupon for free pizza.