Attribute

Attribute, another minor wonder of strategic silliness from Z-Man Games, is a word game inviting more than a bit of psycho-strategico contemplation.

There are two decks of cards: one deck of 60 sheep cards and another of 164 attribute cards. There are only two kinds of sheep in your cutely-illustrated sheep card deck - the green sheep card of topic matching and the red, out-of-topic sheep card. There are 164 kinds of attribute cards, indicated by words like: "spooky," "bleak," "wild," and "furry."

Each person gets 4 attribute cards and one sheep card. Let's say you have a red sheep card. You put that card face down, in front of you. One player, anyone, actually, makes up a topic. Really, literally, any topic. For example: crime. You are more or less in luck. At least one of your 4 cards clearly and obviously is unrelated to "crime." For example, "Furry." But perhaps less in luck than you might first have thought. Because if you put down your Furry card it will be fairly obvious to everyone that you are a red sheep. It might have been better to use your "spooky" card, or even the card called "wild." At least you might make someone hesitate.

Because, you see, when all is said and done, and everyone has put their sheep face down and an attribute face up, players then select (e.g. grab) any face down pair, the object being to have grabbed a green sheep, and not a red, don't you see. So when all the pairs are on the table, you have to think very, very quickly - is the attribute that's revealed enough like the category to be covering a green sheep? Or is it perhaps a ruse, or a rouge, by any other name?

Since Attribute can be played by as many as 8 people, it is definitely a party game. It might also succeed as a family game, depending on age of the youngest players. We'd recommend 10 and above for a mixed age group, and 8-10 for a kids' game.

Designed by Marcel-Andre Casasola Merkle, Attribute is a unique and engaging word game. Major FUN.

On the Dot

It's a puzzle. It's a game. It's visual. It's logical. It's On the Dot, and it's Major FUN.

You get 4 transparent squares, each of which shows a different pattern of colored dots. You also get 64, square puzzle cards, each of which also shows a different pattern of colored dots. The challenge: arrange all 4 transparent squares to match the pattern on the puzzle card.

The thing is, each transparent square has 8 possible positions. If they weren't transparent, there'd only be 4. But, see, you can not only turn them clockwise, or counterclockwise, or upside-down or downside-up, you can also turn them over.

And then, since you always have to use all 4 transparent squares, there's learning how to hide the wrong-colored dots underneath the right-colored dots. This works, because though the game cards are transparent, the dots aren't.

And when you play it competitively (there are 4 sets of transparent squares, so up to 4 people can play), you're all turning and flipping those colored squares and sometimes surprising the heck out of each other and yourselves when the solution actually appears.

This is a grown-up kind of puzzle/game, perceptually challenging, logically subtle. You probably need to be at least a fifth-grader before the fun really kicks in.

And it's just about the perfect "filler" game for a games party - since people can pick it up and understand what the puzzle is about almost immediately, amaze onlookers with their brilliance, play with it for 5 minutes or an hour, and, when the time is right, invite others into a game of significant tension and even more significant fun.

Party Pooper

In the latest Out-of-the-Box card-(432 cards)-reading, personality-predicting, finger-pointing fun.

There's a die (the Party Cube). You roll the die. That tells you whether you are looking for the most or least likely person in the group who, for example, would join a bow-hunting safari. It says "Party Pooper," so you're looking for the person you think would be least likely to want to join that old bow-hunting safari. At the count of three, everybody points. Since it's you're turn to be the prime pointer (the "host"), you point to the person you think is the Pooper, while at the same time everyone points to the person they think would be the person you would point at. Get it? Not necessarily the "real" person. Just the person they think you would point at. Then everyone who pointed at the same person you pointed to gets points (chip) and gets to give you points (also a chip) ("gets" as in "has to"). Everybody else, the nay-pointers, as it were, gets nothing. And that's the game. And someone else gets to be the host. And the die is rolled. And a card is picked. And people point. And then they laugh.

And that's it, in brief. In sum, Party Pooper, the many-carded game with chips and pointing and laughing, is Major FUN. In a little more depth, I think you should know why this makers suggest that the game be played, yes, by as many as 8 players, in party-like fashion, as long as everyone's at least 12. Physically and emotionally. Because getting pointed at or not, as fun as it can be, is easy to take a little too personally. In fact, there might be people who have been categorized as adults, and yet might actually be prone to taking such playful pointings personally.

And there is an alternate set of rules, actually, that don't involve finger pointing, but rather thumbs-upping or -downing.

But you happen to be the kind of person who plays for fun. And regular-old Party Pooper happens to be just that kind of game, especially with all the pointing. A genuinely fun game. And the people you want to play with are also of that emotional age we consider to be at least 12. And it will be something definitely, deliciously fun, this game of Party Pooper. I promise, or my name is not Major Fun.

Rage

It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Rage. Being the mild-mannered Major you know me so well to be, it might strike you as uncharacteristic of me. But, you see, I'm talking about a game. A game called "Rage." A card game, for as few as 2, or as many as 8 players, all of whom know about trick-taking games. It will remind you, as a matter of fact, of that old trick-taking game, with the unfortunate, but evocative name "Oh Hell.

The Rage deck consists of 110 Cards of 6 suits of color cards each numbered 0-15. There are 14 "special" cards including: 2 Wild Rage cards, 4 Out Rage cards, 4 Change Rage cards, 2 Mad Rage Card. All those cards, and all those special cards might make you think of another card game. Not a trick-taking game at all, but the rather hilarious, and far less serious UNO game. Which makes sense, since the original publishers of UNO were in fact the same people who publish Rage. (In case you asked, Rage is now published by Fundex).

Trick-taking games. You know about those. The reason I am stressing that point is that we had one person in our Tasting who didn't know about trick-taking games, and it made the game less fun for all of us. If you know about trick-taking games, you can learn Rage in a few minutes.

First, there's the deal. The first deal, each player gets 10 cards, the next 9, the next 8, all the way down to the last round, with one card each. So each round is a little shorter, and the tension a little higher.

Then there's the bidding - everyone declares how many tricks she's going to win that round. Not bidding, really, since you're not trying to out bid anyone. More like, well, declaring.

Then there's the play. A card is thrown. You follow suit. If you can't, you throw anything, or throw trump. You know, like a trick-taking game.

Then there are the wild cards. There's Bonus Rage, which gives 5 points to whomever takes the trick. Mad Rage, which takes 5 points away from the she who took the trick. Out Rage, of course, there is no trump for the rest of the round. Change Rage, which lets you change trump to any color. And Wild Rage - allowing you to change the color of the suit being played.

So, no matter how card-countingly astute you are, anyone at any time can change pretty much everything. Which adds just that extra spice of fate-fickleness to make you laugh instead of scream.

Very Major FUN.

Cheeky Monkey

Cheeky Monkey is what they call a "press your luck" game (similar in its pres-your-luckness to perhaps the archetype of all press your luckish games, the most significantly Major FUN Can't Stop, both of which, coincidentally, are published by Face 2 Face Games). It's easy to learn, and can be played with actually equal glee by both children (7 and up) and adults. Hence making it something like an ideal family game, but an equally good children's game and an even more equally recommended party game.

You get a collection of 52 poker-chip-like tokens, 8 "bonus tiles" (made of satisfyingly thick cardboard), and an even more satisfyingly thick cloth, drawstring bag. There are eight different animals depicted on the chips. Some animals are more numerous than others. For example, there are 10 monkeys but only 3 elephants. There is one tile for each animal, and the total number of of each kind of animal is indicated on the corresponding tile. The eight tiles are placed, face up on the table, and the chips placed in the bag.

On your turn, you pick and pick and pick chips from the bag, until you want to stop picking, or you pick an animal that you've already drawn. In the first case, you keep all the chips you drew. In the second, they go back into the bag - that's right, all of them. You are, of course, sorely tempted to keep on picking. Hence, the press-your-luckishness of the game.

When you have finished picking, you stack your chips, in any order you deem strategically beneficial. On your next turn, you add your winnings, again in any order, but you can't change the order of the chips you've already stacked. The relevance of stacking order becomes especially vivid during play, when you discover that if someone picks an animal that is currently on top of your stack, you must relinquish said animal to the aforementioned someone. This is a clearly less than desirable outcome for you, as the player with the most chips at the end of the game wins.

Then there are the monkeys, those cheeky critters, which, upon pickage, can also be swapped with any animal on top of anyone's stack.

As play progresses and stacks heighten, the strategic implications of stack order and animal distribution become ever more vivid. Seeing as there are only 3 elephants, for example, if you know that the other 2 elephants are already stacked, you can just about secure your stack if you place an elephant on top - that is, as long as no one picks a money and decides to employ it in a cheeky manner.

Yet another game by the prolific designer Reiner Knizia, Cheeky Monkey is further evidence of what good game design is all about. Major FUN.

Incan Gold

Incan Gold is another "press your luck" game, different enough from all other "press your luck"-like games to be just as fun, and just as worthy of your seriously playworthy consideration.

It doesn't take long to learn, it takes only about 20 minutes to play, and the joyful luck-pressing can be shared by 3, or as many as 8 players. You do have to spend some time arranging the cards, but, after the first time you play, all that card arranging adds to the anticipation of a significantly fun experience of engaging each other in an intense exploration of the various wages of caution and greed.

The game is played in 5 rounds. A round begins by drawing a "Quest card" from the pile, turning it over, and placing it face-up next to one of the "Temple cards." The card that is revealed can either be a Treasure card, an Artifact, or a Hazard. If it is a Treasure, the players divide it between them, placing small plastic pieces in front of their personal treasuries (in front, and not inside, because the Treasure can't be claimed until someone has taken it safely out of the Temple). If it is an Artifact, it will be added to the treasury of the first player to remove it from the Temple. If it is a Hazard, there's no score. If a second Hazard of the same type is drawn later on in the round, all the potential treasures and artifacts are lost. All those little plastic, colored crystal-in-the-rough-shaped pieces... They go back. And nobody gets to keep them. Nobody. Not even you.

Once a card is placed on the table, players all have the option to go forward and reveal the next card, or to leave the Temple and collect the goodies indicated by the graphically rendered significance appearing on the card.

On the other hand, before the next Quest card can be revealed, you all, simultaneously, flash one of two cards on to the conceptual table. One card shows that you want to go forward, as it were, into the Temple, and seek greater fortune. The other, that you want to "leave the temple" immediately.

If one and only one of you flashes the card that symbolizes the decision to "leave the temple" already, that player, you, for example, get to take all the exposed Artifact Cards as your very own. Heh. Heh. Hey. If you're not the only one leaving, you and your fellow leavers share the pretty plastic pieces potentially accumulated and put them into a little tent you made out of a folded card. And nobody gets the Artifacts. Heh, hey. But you don't play any more for the rest of the round. Also hey, hey, hey.

Incan Gold is produced by Sunriver Games and is also available from Funagain. An earlier form of Incan Gold, Diamant, was published in Germany by Schmidt Speile, and was also was also available from Funagain.

Imaginiff - the card game

You've undoubtedly read about the Major FUN-worthy game of Imaginiff, and made careful note of our unabashed enthusiasm for the aforementioned. This all should prove useful in helping you understand why we are so exceptionally delighted to introduce you to Buffalo Games most recent Imaginiff-like accomplishment: Imaginiff - the card game.

It's somewhat of a significant accomplishment, actually, for all playkind: For the designers, making a successful translation from the board game to a card game format. For the traveler, who needs games that are portable and can be played almost anywhere (restaurant, hotel lobby, ship deck, motel room). The mechanics are simple and efficient. You get a write-on/wipe-off card and marker (the marker even has an eraser on it - which comes in demarkably handy), a die, 68 question cards, and 6 voting cards. The write-on/wipe-off card is used for score keeping and to keep track of who gets to be the subject of the question. The die is determines who's going to get talked about. And the question cards ask things like: "Imaginiff ______ were a flying object. Which would he/she be: A Blimp, B Biplane, C Glider, D Lear jet, E Brick." Players vote, and those who agree each get a point. If the person who asks the question also agrees, s/he gets an additional point

A subtle, but very useful variable in both versions of the game: the six people who are to be the subjects of the Imaginiff questions can be anyone at all, real or fictional, the people you're playing with, or anybody else you all know. So, when you're playing with people you don't really know that well, and are maybe wisely concerned that someone might not share your sense of humor, you can choose to have all imaginary players, or athletes, or movie stars, or politicians, even.

Most assuredly Major FUN.

Gumball Rally

Ted Cheatham's Gumball Rally is another excellent card game from Z-Man Games. This one's especially for kids or for adults looking for a "filler game."

It's a race, all right, for up to 8 players. The game takes less than a half-hour to play, and probably less than half of that to learn. The manufacturers recommend it for kids 6 and up. We recommend it for kids who like playing race-type games, and especially for adults who enjoy playing light and quick.

You get 8 different Go Kart cards - that is, large, thick, well-illustrated, cardboard cards depicting different Go Karts. You also get a deck of playing cards - 4 different kinds of playing cards (Race cards - 4 suits, each numbered 1-10; Hazard cards (19 cards, no numbers), 10 point cards, and 8 small Go Kart cards to help you remember which Kart is yours. So there are several sorting moments required. And yet more sorting moments once you separate out all the Hazard cards: giving each player 3 cards, removing the Winner and two Checkpoint cards, shuffling the remaining cards, removing 4 cards and placing them in the box (without looking at the cards), taking 3 cards from the Hazard deck and shuffling them with the Winner card, then 3 more cards from the Hazard deck shuffled with one Winner card, and again - placing these all in a stack to form the bottom of the draw pile. All of which is very clever and logical once you actually play the game, because the Winner and Checkpoint cards, placed as they are near the bottom of the deck, force the game to some oft-delightful and generally timely conclusions. After the first game, all this shuffling and sorting seems to add both to the fun of the game and the fun of getting ready to have fun.

The large Go Kart cards are placed, in order of play, on the table - the first player in the first position, etc. Race cards determine which Go Kart is the fastest. If you play a Race card, and you are in, say, third position, and your card is higher than the Go Kart in the second position, then you move up one position. Then there are the Hazard cards which affect the Go Kart whose color matches the inner border of the Hazard card.

Oddly enough, despite all this apparent complexity, the game takes only about 15 minutes to learn and less than a half-hour to play. The pace is fast enough to keep everyone in play - even when there are 8 players. Which makes the game feel most race-like - especially as cars are constantly changing position, and even more especially when you pass the lead car.

The cards are vividly illustrated by John Donahue under the direction of jim pinto (who artistically spells his name in lower case).

A lot of big fun in this little game.

Nacho Loco

Nacho Loco isn't exactly a card game, actually. It's more of a tile game, played with triangles (hence "Nacho"s), made out of cardboard. And yes, it could very well remind you of Triominoes, though it plays more like a, well, card game - a bit like, perhaps, UNO.

You get 94 cards. If they were thick and made of plastic, you'd think of them as tiles. But they're cardboard. And not thick enough to stand up. Just thick enough to be impossible to shuffle. So you put them face-down on the table, smush them around until they're satisfyingly mixed, and give 6 cards to each of up to 6 players.

Each card is divided into three equal triangular sections. Some are different colors. Some have words on them. Some are black, and marked with an X. To play one of your cards, you have to match one of the sections of your card with one of the sections of a card on the table. The X-marked black sections can't be matched, by anything, even by other X-marked black sections.

The sections with words say "Skip Next," or "Go Again," or "Opponent Draws 3." If you have an exact match, then either the next player gets skipped, or you get to play again, or you can tell any opponent to draw 3 additional card/tiles.

The object of the game is to get rid of your cards. As soon as someone has played her last card, she gets one point for each card remaining in the other players' hands. The first player to get 20 points wins. And that's about that.

Visually, the game is quite appealing. As it progresses, colorful, three-dimensional-like patterns are created. And the back of the cards look like, yes, nachos. Rounds are relatively short, and the game has a fast-enough pace to keep everyone involved for the duration. Easy to learn. Mildly strategic. Fun to play.

Fun for kids as young as 8, the game should appeal equally to everyone in the family. Nacho Loco comes to us from Buffalo Games, makers of the Major FUN award winning iMAgiNiff.

Escalation!

Escalation!, despite the cartoon-enabled violence of its imagery, is actually a fun little card game from the prolific, multiple-award-winning Reiner Knizia.

There are 55 cards in the artfully illustrated deck. The cards are numbered 1-13. There are two special cards - the Neighborhood Watch and the wild cards.

Each player (from 2 to 6 players) is dealt 6 cards. On your turn, you must discard a card that is higher than the card(s) just played. I say "card(s)" because if you have two or more of the same rank, you can play as many of them as you want, raising the target number by the total of the numbers on the card(s) you play. So, if you have two 7s, and the current target number (the number last played) is 6, you can play one 7, raising the target number by one, or both 7s, raising the target number to 14.

The wild cards can be any number from 1-7. The "Neighborhood Watch" cards don't change the target number.

On your turn, if you can't play a card that is higher than the current target, you have to pick up all the cards played, and put them in a pile. You really don't want this pile, because every card you collect counts against you.

That's about it. The game takes about 5 minutes to learn and 10 minutes to play. Of course, you'll probably want to play it several times, perhaps several many.

Published by Z-Man Games, Escalation! is one of those somewhat mechanical games that require only some actual awareness, perhaps a little strategy, and yet prove to be a very welcome "filler" at any games gathering.

The game is nicely packaged in a well-made cardboard box (the kind with a lid). The rules are printed on one of the cards, so the whole thing gives you the feeling of something well- and thoughtfully-made, as if someone really cared about creating a game you could treasure.

Go Mental

Which of these doesn't belong?

guessing
challenge
knowledge
steal

Actually, if you're playing Go Mental from HL Games, they all belong. So that was a trick question, is what it was.

Go Mental is a trivia game. Not to trivialize it in any way. Because, despite what you think you know about trivia games, this one's unique. And it comes with 1000 questions. That's one thousand. On 500 cards. And that's a lot of cards. But it's what's on the cards, of course, that really counts.

Let me give you a better example. Not a trick question. A real one. From the actual game its veritable self. I begin:

?
Octopus
Squid
Scorpion
Spider

So, which of those things, as they frequently ask on Sesame Street, is not like the others? Did you say Octopus? Nope. Squid is the answer. Why? Because the other three have eight legs or tentacles. And the squid has, how many? That's right - ten.

Harder than you thought. And maybe you learned something, even.

The game is a race, like so many games of the trivia-type. And there's a race-track-like board. With 30 spaces. So you definitely get that race-like feeling - that sense of getting ahead and falling behind.

Then there are the Challenge Cards. Suppose you get a question, and you're not sure what the answer is. Or better yet, you get a question and you're pretty sure that a certain someone does not know the answer. So, you play a Challenge Card. If you're right about the other person, and he doesn't know the answer, he has to move backwards. Four spaces! O, the humanity! On the other hand, if he does in fact know the answer, he gets to move forward four spaces. Ha ha on you!

O, and the Steal Cards. Similar to the Challenge Cards in their card-likeness. But markedly different in drama and overall glee-potential. See, when it's someone else's turn, and you think you know the answer, and this someone else has not yet said anything answer-like, you may slap down one of your Steal cards, shout "Steal," and get to answer the question yourself. Now, when you Steal, you have to get both parts of the question right. That is, you have to not only identify which of the four items doesn't belong, but you also have to explain why. If you are correct on both counts, you get to move four spaces closer to the goal. Wrong? About either part? Guess what?

The Steal and Challenge cards are brilliant innovations in themselves, adding significantly to the excitement of the game, keeping everyone involved regardless of whose turn it is.

In theory, a game should last about a half-hour. The manufacturers even include a one-minute sand timer to use when people need the hint. There are enough pieces (little plastic brains, no less), to keep 6 players going, mentally speaking. You can also play in teams, which makes everything so much more party-like. Best thing about playing in teams, you don't have to take your own ignorance so personally.

Should you be so motivated and wish to include those of the younger persuasion (as young as 8), HL Games offers a supplemental deck of "Fundamental" questions, making it possible for the kids to Go Mental, so to speak, with or without you. O, the fun of it all!

Halli Galli

Halli Galli is probably the fastest, easiest to learn, slap your hand down first kind of slap jack-like card game with a bell good enough for a concierge, in the world. And it's got that added, slightly arithmo-perceptuo challenge that makes you have to stop, look and count, and it's that very slight challenge that makes Halli Galli Major, I kid you not, FUN.

The hotel-worthy bell adds yet another je ne c'est qua to the mise en scene, as it were, so to speak. It's loud. Pleasantly, reveberationingly bell-like in tone. But loud. And the bell-dinger is, like the bell, made of metal, and it's small and round, and slapping it can honestly hurt. Especially when it's your hand, and you're a kid, and your father's very manlike hand is on top of yours in a nano-slap. And yet, it's a remarkably kid-worthy, and grown-up party-worthy game. Just, perhaps, not family-worthy, just because of the noise and sheer excitement and pain-potential of it all.

You get a deck of 56 cards. The cards have pictures of fruit on them. You know, fruit, like apples and bananas. Only some cards have like three apples on them and some have just one banana and some have two apples and a strawberry, too. You deal out all the cards. Everybody, at the same time, reveals their top card. If there happen to be, between all the players, exactly five of any fruit (I did say exactly), the first person to ring the bell wins all the face-up cards. And so you go, simulflipping, looking for exactly 5 of exactly the same, flipping again, more and more cards being added to the discard piles with every flip.

From AMIGO Spiel & Freizeit GmbH, and made available in the US by Rio Grande Games, Halli Galli can be played by 2-6 players, the more the crazier. You can play it with kids as young as six and with adults of all phases. It takes maybe 5 minutes to learn and 15 minutes to play a single round. And you will play many rounds.

GiftTRAP, virtually yours

If you happened to find yourself in such a position, and you wished to express, materially, in a virtual-sort of way, your personal appreciation for my ongoing existence, you might very well wish to send me a gift of some sort - especially if it didn't cost you anything. The question remains, however, what to get me. I've narrowed it down to: Pottery Classes, a Digital Camcorder, and a dress-up outfit. As an added incentive, if you happen to choose the one I really, really, really wanted most in the world, given only those three choices, you'd get three thumbs-up points and so would I! So, see, I really do want you to guess the one I really want, because then we both gets thumbs-up points. So the game is about giving each other things, things that'd be nice to be able to give each other, virtual, no-cash-value gifts that nonetheless are genuine acts of thoughtfulness.

This is GiftTRAP Live, Virtual GiftTRAP, yes, the Major FUN award-winning GiftTRAP of that very same name. Only, it's online now, and it's all grown-up into a game for online social networks, if you know what I mean.

On the one hand, it's a kind of an eCard, so to speak, a nice virtual thing you can send people. Way more personal than a joke. Just as much fun. On the other hand, it's a great way to start that "what do you really want for your birthday, or holidays" conversation. So it's like Web 2.0, see, interpenetrating virtual and actual space.

Now that you know that I'd actually prefer the dress-up outfit, you know where to shop for me. And you can shop online, even. And it's like one of those Mass Multiplayer Online Games you sometimes read about, like Second Life, only the life on GiftTRAP's stage is kinder and gentler and more fun.

It behooves me to admit to a personal interest in this project. It was a comment I made back to the Nick from GiftTRAP that kicked off this whole project, and I've been lucky enough to kibitz on various iterations of this game as its evolved.

Which is why I get to be the first to blog about it going live.



from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

In a Pickle

In a Pickle is something you can get easily into, in Gamewright's party-like, family-worthy card game from for 4-6 players, especially. Especially players who like to play with words, and, amongst those, the ones who care more about fun than about winning.

You get cards, many cards, 320 many. Every card has a word on it. Every word is a noun. So you give each player a handful of nouns, and you take 4 nouns, place them in the middle of the table, head to head, in a plus sign, arrows out.

Arrows. Arrows help you remember the direction of the "fit-into" - for that is the key criteria by which one evaluates one's options - something that fits into something else. In the direction of the arrows. So like, if you had CHICKEN on one of the cards and someone overlaps BALLOON upon CHICKEN, one might be reasonably implying that a CHICKEN can fit into a BALLOON. Similar things could be said about underlapping WHISTLE with CHICKEN because a WHISTLE can fit into a CHICKEN, much to the chagrin of the aforementioned.

The fun makes itself especially apparent during "Pickle Rounds" which are initiated as soon as one of the arms of the plus (the array of cards, face up, on the table) reaches 4. After that, players may ONLY play cards on that arm, the last player to successfully add a card winning all the cards in that arm. O, both goodie and glee! All the cards in an arm!!

The success of this game depends a lot on the light-heartedness of the players, in the first place. But if you're a small group of friends, or an actually healthy family, and you enjoy arguing (who doesn't?) you'll probably find it Major FUN

Zobmondo!! "Would You Rather...?"

Zobmondo!! "Would You Rather...?" is the party game for three or more players that asks your basically unanswerable questions - questions like "Would you rather be the circus person that the knife thrower throws knives at, or the one who puts their head in the lion's mouth?" It's the "conundrum-likeness" of the questions that is key to the fun of the game. There really are no correct answers. But they're fun to think about, and talk about, and maybe even argue over.

Zobmondo!! "Would You Rather...?" game comes in several incarnations. There's a version for people ages 12 and up and another for people 16 and up. There's Zobmondo!! You Gotta Be Kidding, a version designed for people 7 and up. And a travel version for 12 and up.

We'll talk about the travel version last, primarily because the mechanics are a little different.

In all of its manifestations, the game centers on your ability to predict which of the two choices most people will select. Since the choices are equally questionable ("would you rather be able to walk on water forever or fly for three hours on three different occasions in your life?"), you're more or less intuiting (all right, guessing) what everyone will decide. The real fun for everyone else is in the discussion (debate? argument?) over which of the two answers make the more sense (given that neither is actually more sensible than the other). There's a board and die that help determine who is closer to winning (the most intuitive/luckiest) of the group, what the category of conundrum will be ("Pain - Fear, Discomfort," "Appearance, Embarrassment," "Ethics - Intellect," or "Random"), or whether the player must select a "Challenge" card. (The 16-plus version has an additional category: "Food - Ingestion.")

Even though the basic premise of the game - arguing over basically absurd choices - is fun enough, the challenge cards add a valuable dimension to the game: variety. Some challenges can be won by any player (e.g., the "Best Reason" card which asks all the players to "compose the most creative, thought provoking, and/or funniest reason for your choice"), and some, like the "Would You Do It" challenge, where you win the challenge only if you do things like "demonstrate a pickle mustache by holding a pickle between your upper lip and nose for one full turn."), won only by the player who selects the card.

Of the three versions, You Gotta Be Kidding, the game for the 7-ups, is clearly the silliest. There are no categories. You get questions like "Would you rather eat a hair sandwich or an earwax omelet?" You have a game board which is actually much easier to use (we did have some minor problems interpreting exactly how to move from track to track on the other versions). And you get this really neat electronic "Red Chili Pepper" thing. It's only used for some of the challenge cards, and works kind of like a hot potato. And changes the pace of the game just about perfectly.

Then there's the metal-tinned travel version that comes without a die, or a board, or playing pawns, and yet is inviting and fun enough to help you bridge significant distances - geographically and socially. The key is the artful use of a write-on, wipe-off board. There are four spaces on the board: Contender, Dead-Ender, Limbo, and the Prediction space. At the beginning of the game, everyone writes their initials in the Contender space. There are category chips. The first Contender picks a chip, then a "Would You Rather...?" card, and the game proceeds as usual - the chip determining which conundrum gets read, the Contender writing her prediction on the board, everyone else having a semi-serious, consensus-reaching discussion. Guess right, you are still a Contender, and you pass the board to the next player. Guess wrong, you are a Dead-Ender. For the rest of the game, when it's your turn, you have to make up a new conundrum. If your prediction is correct, you get to move anyone else into the Limbo zone, which, in itself, becomes a source of further contention. The last Contender wins.

All in all, the game, in each of its various manifestations, invites many happy hours of contemplation, conversation, significant silliness, and Major FUN.

Snatch

Snatch, based on the Victorian word game of anagrams, is a very portable and nicely executed word game from US Games Systems, Inc..

Anagrams, under any name, is a word game you should know about. It is elegantly simple, with very few rules, and yet can become remarkably absorbing, intense, and challenging for even the best of word game players. The look and feel of the tiles is an important contribution to an overall excellent game, hence, our most wholehearted endorsement of Snatch.

You begin with a pool of letter tiles, all turned face down. On your turn, you turn over any tile. Then it's the next player's turn. As soon as any player sees a word that can be made from the exposed tiles, that player calls the word out and wins the tiles for herself. She places the tiles in front of her, face-up, so that all players can see her word. The game continues, tiles turned over one per turn, so to speak. Now here is the excruciating part - if any player can add some exposed tiles to one of your words so as to change it into a different word, that player can claim your tiles. So: 1) you never really own anything until the very end of the game, and, 2) as the game progresses, there are more and more snatch-worthy words to contemplate. Especially those long words.

So Snatch, even though it is not in itself a new game, is clearly Major FUN. It is reasonably priced, attractive, well-executed, the plastic tiles are smooth to the touch and slide easily on tablecloth or tabletop as you rearrange them (which you do often) - all the things you want in a good game. Though it can be played by as many players as are interested, we've found that it's best in a smallish group (2-4) of people who are equally adept, word-wise, and equally competitive, reaction-time-wise.

What's Yours Like?

Today's conceptual gift is a remarkably simple, and deeply fun party game from Patch Products called "What's Yours Like?".

Pick a card. The card has a word on it. Show the card to everyone except the person guessing, who asks: "what's yours like." Take turns answering the question, being sure to be accurate, and subtle. Too clear a clue, and it will be guessed immediately. Too subtle, and, well, it's just not fair.

For example, suppose the card reads "washing machine." Legitimate answers to such an innocuous "what's yours like" question might be: "mine is white," "mine has a lot of knobs," "mine is noisy," etc. However, given the age and nature of the people playing, the answers could just as easily become rife with double meaning, and I mean rife, like, for example: "mine makes my underwear wet."

For us, that was really the charm of the game - how much of it was really up to us - to our collective cleverness and naughty nuanciness. Which means that the game will be different, depending on who's playing with whom. Different when playing with family than when playing with friends, different with teen-agers than with seniors. Which makes the game even that much more successful, and fascinating, and Major FUN-worthy.

There are 188 two-sided cards "guess word" cards. One side is recommended for older players because they might include things that kids don't have (in-laws, ulcers, jobs). There are two wipe-off clue boards with markers. The player in the "Hot Seat" uses one, writing down each clue as it is given (the fewer clues, the better the score). There are 95 Challenge cards. These cards allow the Hot Seated player to share the Hot Seat, as it were. That's when the other clue-writing board comes into play. Now the two players with the Hot Seats compete with each other, the first to guess the word correctly gets to take two points (points are bad) off her score.

What's Yours Like is a game for 4 or more players. With 4 players, it takes maybe 15 minutes for a round. Figure 3 rounds per game. The art of giving just the right response, of being clever, yet accurate, actually outweighs the accomplishment of guessing what was on the card. It's a game that will make you laugh, a lot, even without keeping score. Like I said, it's Major FUN.

Twisted Pairs

Twisted Pairs is a party game, indeed it is. You need at least 4 players. But it is clearly of the more-the-merrier type.

No, it's not charades. I can see why you'd think it's like charades - you're trying to get people to guess something that you know (hopefully). And you're performing, more or less. Except it's not acting. It's spelling. I mean, what you're doing is spelling out a word or several words. Not with words, naturally. But with your bodies. Did I say "bodies"? As in more than one body? Indeed I did. As in two bodies. So, to make, for example, the letter "H," you and your partner might be standing facing each other, holding your arms down at your sides, but bending your elbows and holding hands, like the cross-bar of the "H" - know what I mean?

Which, of course, is the big question for everyone else - that is, do they know what letter you mean. Because as soon as someone does know that letter, or thinks she knows that letter, or thinks she wants everyone else to think she knows that letter, she simply says something like "got it." And then the two letter-makers go on to make the next letter. Got it? And on and on until someone guesses correctly, getting, so to speak, the point. As for those who didn't "get it," well, they're still very much in the game, guessing away at the next and the next letters, hoping to fill in the blanks, in retrospect. And when someone correctly yells out the entire phrase, then there's the race to be first to shout out the bonus answer and get a richly deserved for bonus point. And so can the spellers.

No, of course not, it's definitely not Twister, though you and your partner are twisting around each other's bodies in some bizarre, Twister-like ways. And it clearly has nothing to do with Trivial Pursuit either, unless the spinner happens to land on the Trivia Question. We'll talk about that later. But there's no Pursuit going on. Unless you count the pursuit of laughterness, which is just about what this game is all about.

The stuff of the game includes a box of cards. There are two sets of cards - one for questions relating to Pre-1990, the other, Post- (a thoughtful distinction for the younger player, as well as for those with short attention spans). Each card contains one of 5 different categories, 4 of which result in a word or phrase that the Spellers attempt to convey, bodily, letter-by-letter. The categories ("famous character," "famous quote," "song title," "song lyric") help the rest of the party figure out what the spellers are spelling. The fifth category is the Trivia Question. Here, the spellers are given only the question, and must rely on their collective wit to spell out the correct answer (written on the back of the card). And, should their wit be not well informed, well, at least it was fun watching them try.

All of which to say there are many levels of mental and physical calisthenics, combined with ongoingly merry mayhem resulting in an experience that is clearly Major FUN. Everyone involved, everyone thinking hard, everyone challenged at almost every level, and, surprisingly often, everyone laughing. Do you still need to know why we recommend this game with such enthusiasm? As the designers so pithily inquire: "do we have to spell it out for you?"

Smart Ass

Smart Ass is a guessing game. Except you don't want to guess until you're more or less absolutely sure. Because you only get one per round.

There's a board. There are pieces. There are dice (two, nice, big dice). And there are question cards - 220 of them to be exact. Two-sided cards. So that's 440 questions. Which is more than enough for many hours of significant play.

It's the question cards that are most interesting. Because each card is a graduated list of hints - the first being the most general, the last, the most specific. Generally, by the time you hear the last hint, you pretty much know the answer. It's a little like a game of 20 questions, only it's 10 answers.

So that makes it a very different kind of guessing game. Since everybody can guess, it makes it also an unusually involving, and clearly Major FUN kind of guessing game - especially for teens.

If you guess correctly, you get to roll the numbered die and move that many spaces around the track. So, the sting of your victory is somewhat mollified by the balm of blind luck. There are three special spaces on the board, called, respectively (but definitely not respectfully) "Dumb Ass," "Hard Ass," and "Kick Ass." If you land on "Dumb Ass" you can't guess the next round. "Hard Ass" you get a bonus question. "Kick Ass" you have to move back three places.

All in all, there's just enough luck to keep the game open for everyone, just enough challenge to keep the game interesting, and just enough mayhem to keep the game fun.

Stack revisited

I am certain you recall that Stack received a Major Fun Award a little over 4 years ago. In fact, it was a recipient of several awards: the Party Games award, the Thinking Games award, the much-touted Keeper award, and even, oddly enough, it was found most Senior-Worthy. And you probably even recall why.

I, on the other hand, have been exploring the game in greater depth, especially recently as I work more and more with various groups of seniors hereabouts. And what I have been exploring, actually, is the, shall we say, "Super Stack" set - two different sets of the Stack game (the deluxe, jumbo, of course), each set having different color dice, thereby enabling me to play a game with 8 people.

The large dice that come with the deluxe version prove to be especially comforting for senior eyes and hands. Easy to read, even at a distance, enjoyable to hold because of their greater heft, and easier to stack because of their larger size. Having enough for eight people makes the game ideal for building a sense of community and friendship. Because the group is larger, people don't can play at a safe distance from each other (psychologically safe), but because they're all sharing the same set of dice, they feel connected. If we need to, we can easily divide into smaller, more intimate groups. But having all those dice means that each player has twice as many options to consider. On the one hand, it makes the beginning of the game that much easier and more inviting. On the other, it makes the endgame that much more dramatic. Stacks get built, options constantly get fewer and fewer, the need to play strategically gets more and more vivid.

Stack, even with only 4 colors, has never disappointed us as a game for almost all ages. But having twice as many dice turns out to be more than twice as flexible, twice as interesting, for at least twice as many people.

Cineplexity

What's the name of that movie? The one with a Native American, or maybe a Hawaiian. By a river, I think, or a lake or a stream of some sort? Oh, you know what I mean. Yeah, that's it, Blue Crush. Wait, there's another movie, also with a river or lake or stream, and there was a wheelchair, I think, or was it a crutch, no, a cane. Wait, could that be Cane River?

Is part or all of this conversation at all familiar? Have you now or ever engaged someone in a similar movie-related dialogue? Well, then, Cineplexity is, without doubt, the very game you should be playing at this very moment, verily.

We were actually amazed at how fun this game turned out to be. Sure, it reminded us of the oft-touted, trend-setting, Major FUN-award-winning, Out of the Box Publishing easy-to-learn party game Apples to Apples. As well it might, considering that it is published by the aforementioned themselves. But, you see, it looks so Apples-to-Apples-like with its many cards and simple rules and calling out for 4 to 10 players and stuff, that you'd assume it's pretty much another of those many Apples to Apples variants, only about movies. But you'd be wrong. It's a different game. Completely. Sure, there's a judge (cleverly called the "director"). And the Director doesn't actually play, because s/he has to do the, um, judging. But that's it, Apples-to-Apples-similarity-wise.


In Apples to Apples everything is relative, the actual degree of relativity determined by the judge. In Cineplexity, you have to come up with a "real" answer - a verifiable, actual movie including, beyond doubt, the actual scene or props, or belonging to the specified genre, whose characters have the certifiable characteristics depicted by two, or perhaps three, of 504 the randomly drawn Cineplexity cards. And, amazingly, there seems always to be at least one movie that usually at least one person knows that matches precisely.

Oh, the intensity. And oh, oh, the brain-wracking. And, ah hah hah, the laughter.

Cineplexity. Surprisingly different. Not so surprisingly fun.

Balanko

Balanko is such a straightforward invitation to fun that you almost don't need to read the rules. There's a ball on a string. There's another ball that rides a curved track. There are pits of various score values - the center and widest pit being, naturally, both the easiest to get the ball into and of the lowest value. There are sliding scorekeepers to keep track of your achievements.

One player releases the rolling ball. The other player releases the swinging ball, hoping that the swinging ball will hit the rolling ball into a high scoring pit. The only other thing you might want to know, suggested-rule-wise, is that the ball-roller, sitting on the opposite side of the game, can try to catch the ball-swinger's, uh, ball. Which is actually a good idea, given that if she doesn't catch the swinging ball, and the rolling ball is still rolling, her opponent can try to catch it and again take yet another swing.

If nothing else happens, sooner or later the swinging ball is going to hit the rolling ball anyway. On the other hand, it could make the rolling ball go into either the ball-swinger's or the ball-roller's pit. So, if one player doesn't catch it, the other player might consider it strategically sound to grab for the swinging ball as soon as it's in range.

Setting it up is a bit less straightforward, but the instructions are clear, the steps few, and it is easy enough to do (once you rid yourself of certain expectations about how it "should" go together) that you won't mind having to take it apart and put it back together. Though you'll probably want to keep it assembled and ready to play with for-practically-ever.

We've given Balanko the coveted "Major Fun Family Game Award" because it is the kind of game that will be as much fun for kids as it will be for adults and probably even more fun for kids and adults together. For similar reasons, it's also getting a Party Games award, even though only two people can play it at a time. And, if that's not enough to interest you, you should know that it is being seriously considered a Keeper.

Saboteur

Saboteur is a fun, party-worthy game - especially if you learn it from someone who has played it before. And even more especially if you're playing with 5-10 people (though you can play it with as few as 3).

The instructions, though well-written and not overly complex, require more patience than most Major Fun games - the path cards and the cards that blow up paths and the role cards and the goal cards and the gold cards and the action cards with tools and cards that break tools and, well, if you try to figure out what each card does before you start playing the game, you'll probably lose patience before you discover the sheer fun of it all.

So here's the gist. There are miners and there are saboteurs, maybe. Depending on how many people are playing and what role cards are drawn. Nobody knows for sure until the end of the game who's what. The miners are trying to build a path to the gold card. The saboteurs are trying to keep the miners from succeeding. Whoever succeeds, miners or saboteurs, get to share the wealth.

There are 110 cards - well-made, nicely illustrated. Players get 4-6 cards, depending on how many are playing. The three goal cards are placed, face down, on one end of the board. Only one of those cards has the big gold nugget. You won't know which unless you draw a card that allows you to sneak a peek. At the other end of the table, exactly seven card-widths away, is the start card. Players take turns playing path cards, face up, so that a path is made from the start card, ultimately, hopefully, to the gold card. There are cards that can blow up path cards - forcing the miners to create a different path. There are cards that can keep players from playing. Now, if you're a Saboteur, sooner or later you're going to want to blow something up, or play one of those bad cards on somebody or play a path card that creates a dead end. But if you do this too soon, tipping your hand, as it were, then the miners (a.k.a. "dwarves") will gang up on you. So there's this exciting tension that builds up, and sense of secrecy, and alliances, and, well, it gets more and more fun, until everyone knows who's who and what's where. And by then, the game's over.

It doesn't take long to play (10, maybe 20 minutes for a round). You're supposed to play three rounds. Which you probably will. Because, like I said, it's fun, it's a game you can play with as many as 10 people.

PDQ - a game for all reasons

PDQ is a sweet little word game - easy to learn, quick (Pretty Darn Quick) as a matter of fact - a game you can play by yourself or with maybe one, or several or even many other people?

You get a deck of 78 letter cards - nice looking, good stock, big, easy-to-read letter cards. You deal out three at a time, face-up. And then you see who can make a word first, or, in case of a tie, who can come up with a longer word. TLP, for example. Tulip. Sure. Or perhaps Platitude. Platitude. Of course. Longer than Tulip. (Did I mention that you can use the letters backwards or forwards?) (Did I also mention that you can use any number of letters before, between or after the three letters that you draw?) (And, of course, the letters have to be in the same order?)

Designed by Jay Thompson to be played by kids as well as adults (kids use just two cards at a time, word game experts can try playing with four), PDQ is pretty darn close to everything you would want in a word game - 5-30 minutes of engaging, challenging, and frequently laugh-producing fun.

ShakeDown

Shakedown is a dexterity game of clearly Major FUN proportions. Basically, you're balancing playing-like cards on top of a narrow platform, adding new cards with every turn. But that's only basically.

Let's start at the bottom. The bottom of the "tower" upon which the cards are balanced. The same bottom where all the cards are stored, and from which all the cards are drawn during play. Let's also take a moment to look at the tower itself, how it twists, as if to make it even more challenging to figure out exactly where the actual center of gravity might be. A lovely thing, actually. Colorful. Self-storing enough that you could throw the box away and take the game with you to every party and family gathering within which you find yourself and others. Note, further, that the cards, which are drawn one at a time from the base of the tower, are drawn from the base of the tower. The base. Whereupon the tower stands. Imagine therefore the increasingly precarious conundrum thereby imposed every time you attempt to extricate a card from the aforementioned - having to perhaps lift the tower upon whose top all those other cards are so cunningly balanced so that you can get your card and take your turn.

Let's continue to the deck itself. Some cards have different values. Other cards ask you to perform acts of evermore significant challenge, like "play cards with non-dominant hand" or "hold tower and spin around" or perhaps "previous player - blow once from 5 feet." And now, at last, to the top, considerably smaller than the base, and yet whereupon the cards are to be placed (two corners of each card not touching any other card).

All in all, an elegant, almost self-explanatory, somewhat Jenga-like game, requiring steady-hands, a willingness to fail, and just enough luck to keep you from taking it seriously.