Epic Settlers of Catan boards...

Found on the Settlers Facebook page  - 8- and 9-player Settlers games.  Epic.

(Although I feel like expansion and trading would be remarkably easy and a bit dull....)

Wits & Wagers Party!

I am excited to review the new version of Wits & Wagers Party. As someone already a big fan of the original version of the game, Wits & Wagers, I was honoured that North Star Games was willing to send me a copy of the game before it is released this weekend at GenCon. I am said to miss out on GenCon in Indianapolis from August 16-19. One day I hope to attend. Meanwhile, let me preview the new version of Wits & Wagers Party for you all.

As the tagline says above, the game comes with some great question cards, better components, and simpler rules. As a fan of the game already, I must admit, I am very excited to get more question cards. I have played my copy enough that I am beginning to remember (at least ballpark close) the answers to some of the questions from my original copy. The new question cards are actually from the out-of-print Wits & Wagers Expansion pack #1. I was always sad to miss out on getting the expansion pack, so Im excited to finally get my hands on these question cards. The question cards included in this edition are lighter and more fun. This makes the game even easier to play with gamers or non-gamers. I will be sure to mix and match my question cards between the two versions I know own.

How Many Licks does it really take to get to the centre of a Tootsie Pop?

The components are better then my older version of Wits & Wagers. The poker chips are a better quality. I would have preferred clay poker chips to be included, but I understand the choice to keep the game affordable. Rumour has it that the game will be on the shelves in the near future at Wal-mart & Target. A huge accomplishment for one of the smaller publishers. Hopefully it will make it on the shelves in the Canadian Wal-mart stores & Canadian Target stores (opening soon). The markers have a nice eraser end attached to the lids. And I love the new answer boards with the fun art. Adds some nice flavour. My favourite is the Green (Hip Hop artist) seen below.

I must confess, I never really thought Wits & Wagers needed easier rules. However, Im starting to see why this was such a brilliant choice. Even though the game has won lots of awards, and my family already is a big fan. I could see the Wits & Wagers Party edition, being an easier game for non-gamers to purchase because of the simpler rules. Instead of calculating betting odds, the "banker" has an easy job of assigning points. Additionally, the game never seems to have a run-away leader, as the predecessor was guilty of on occasion. So even though I miss the green felt mat, I think there is room for both games in my collection. The original is more suitable for playing with gamers, or when I am hosting games nights. However, I am more prone to lend out my copy or purchase copies of Wits & Wagers Party for family and friends who have little to no experience with games.

All in all, I am excited to get more plays of my Wits & Wagers Party. If you are attending GenCon this weekend, or see a copy of this game on the shelf of your local Wal-Mart or Target, I highly recommend you pick it up. The game is affordable, easy to convince others to play, and tons of fun!

- Daryl Andrews

PS: Just noticed a great contest on BoardGameGeek you might want to check out for a chance to win $100 and a pre-release copy of the game. The deadline for submitting is August 14th.
CLICK: HERE

On The Horizon: The Last Banquet...

One major issue that always seems to occur on games night is when there are too many people for the intended games.  My partner laughs at me when I invite a couple people over with a certain "4-player only" game in the back of mind.  And then they ask if they can bring a friend and I laugh nervously whilst in the back of my mind I'm racing through my good 5-player games.  And then he springs it on me that he's invited so and so whose bringing their partner and by then I can't hide my disappointment and anger...  "Stupid party game AGAIN!"

Once you hit 7+ people there aren't that many good strategy games you can play and the last thing you wanna do at someone's gathering is split in to two separate groups.  One recent find that we have pulled out a few times now is The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow, a game for 8 or more players where each player is given a secret identity card which may include a special power.  Most of the players are villagers but a few are werewolves.  The goal for the villagers is to lynch all the werewolves during the day (when everyone's eyes are open) and the werewolves are trying to off the villagers during the night (when everyone closes their eyes).  It's all very paranoid and thoroughly enjoyable, especially when you convince everyone to lynch your best friend who then turns out not to be a werewolf as they so vehemently proclaimed.

Well, another team game, The Last Banquet, looks to be released very soon and can be played with up to 24 people (the more, the merrier!)  In this game the players split into two teams who secretly elect one of the members to be the assassin.  One player is the King/moderator and everyone tries get their team's secret assassin to be seated beside the King by the end of the round.  If so, they kill the king and their team wins the game.  There's a few more rules than that, like the fact that every player has a special power to let them rearrange the players in some way, but in general it looks pretty lighthearted and a lot of fun.  And it's mean-spirited and murderous so I get the feeling my group of friends will eat it up.

Crappy birthday to me, crappy birthday to me.... (a review and a giveaway!)

One-sentence review:  "Well, that was a helluva lot funnier than I expected..."

The full-length review:  One of my favourite party games is a lovely little trivia game called Wits & Wagers which manages to make random trivia fun by allowing a player to gamble and win without necessarily knowing the answers.  When North Star Games offered copies of their newest game, Crappy Birthday, I took a look at the rules and thought, "yeah, this one's not for me."  It beared a striking resemblance to Apples to Apples, another great party game that can sometimes end up remarkably boring when played with the wrong group of people.  But Luke of North Star described it to me as more of an "icebreaker" than most games and if taken lightly enough, it can be really funny (he must follow my blog and knew to warn me).

So with that in mind, we dove into this game over the past weekend with a group of friends of mine who didn't really know each other that well.  The rules are extraordinarily simple.  (In fact one might even argue that there is barely even a game here...)  Everyone has a hand of cards with images and descriptions of some really crappy gifts.  Each player takes a turn as the 'gift receiver' and gets a card face down from every other player.  The cards are mixed up and then revealed and the gift receiver picks the gift they think would be the worstest, awfulest, baddest present to ever, ever get.  The player who gave that gift gets a point, everyone draws a card, and the next player gets a turn getting a bunch of junk.  First player to give three of the stankiest gifts wins.  Pretty simple.

Embiggen to see some of the awful gifts

And I have to admit we had a rather awesome time playing it!  We discussed the reasons people wouldn't want things and we laughed at the hilarious photos on some of the cards.  As an icebreaker, it fit the bill perfectly and made for an excellent way to start the night out. Now a caveat:  this game is VERY casual.  If I hadn't been warned beforehand that it was more of an icebreaker, I might have found it a bit bland.  But if you go in with the right attitude and some witty friends, I gotta tell you it makes for quite an entertaining half-hour.  Kudos to North Star for finding yet another great way to bring people together.  Highly recommended.

The giveaway:  When North Star had first offered a review copy, I mentioned perhaps a giveaway to celebrate my 300th blog post and they were all for it.  Unfortunately, due to them being busy and me also being just busy that post came and went.  (This particular post is #318, methinks.)  HOWEVER, today may just happen to be my birthday and I tend to be rather miserable for most of my birthdays.  So what better reason to do a giveaway of their game, Crappy Birthday, then to celebrate my own crappy birthday.  If you're interested in a copy, shoot me an email at domcontests@hotmail.com with your name and a description of the crappiest gift you ever received and I'll do a draw on Nov. 10th for a brand new copy of the game!  I'll probably post some of your crappy gifts, too, if I get some real winners!

Cottage weekend... Eat Poop You Cat!

Hanging with the boys at the cottage this weekend.  GamerChris will be happy to know that someone suggested a certain parlour game that ended up being a riot.  He didn't know that online it's famously called Eat Poop You Cat (or recently published as Telestrations).  Basically, you cross that old game of telephone with Pictionary and the results are pretty damn funny.  Here are the rules from BGG:

Each player starts with a piece of paper and a pencil. At the top of the paper, each player writes a sentence. Then they pass the papers to their left. The next player "draws" the sentence a la Pictionary, then folds the paper so only the drawing is visible and passes it to their left. The next player looks at the drawing and writes a sentence that they think the drawing represents. This continues until all players have their original paper back. At the end, all players unfold their paper, and much hilarity ensues as "I am the Walrus, koo-koo-ca-choo" becomes "Hitler and I danced the night away in a disco."

The game continues until everyone runs out of paper or everyone has added something to each paper, always ending on a sentence.

Here's a relatively family-friendly example from last night....

And here's some random pics whose complete interpretations can't be repeated here....

My issue with party games: case in point...

Played Balderdash last weekend at a friend's place and one of the players was Romanian.  He'd been in Canada since he was 13 so he's very fluent in English now but it's still not his first language.  Now, he's smart, very smart, but if you're familiar with Balderdash, you'll see the issue.  The goal is to write imaginary definitions for strange words so well that people will guess your definition is actually the real one.  Now, for someone who hasn't spent as much time reading English definitions as the rest of us, he's at a bit of a disadvantage.  Lame.  And not a fair game of skill.  He lost.  Of course.

Reminds of my game of Cranium with my very intelligent but dyslexic friend who kept having to spell words backwards.  He lost.  Of course. 

When I play a game, I'd like to know that everyone is on an even footing if they haven't played the game before,  independent of their academic or cultural background.  Maybe that's why I play so many Eurogames.  Cubes are totally language independent...

Okay, so I enjoy the occasional party game....

Quick one today (still trying to finish thesis!).

Went to dinner last night at my grad supervisor's place. They pulled out Guesstures, an oldie but a goodie. It's really just charades but the timer mechanism ramps up the tension to whole other level. Fun. I brought Wits & Wagers, of course, as we wanted to try it out. Great, great game. Short, very short. And it's a trivia game where you don't need to know any of the answers. It is actually possible to play quite strategically and win that way. Glad I made the purchase. I see what all the hype is about. My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the questions were very American. Size of US states, questions about dates of US government, etc. Not a big deal but I'm looking forward to the Canadian version which I'll probably guess all wrong as well....

Party games that don't suck....

So I often get people saying, "I LOVE games! Let me know when you play cuz I'll bring over Cranium..." AArrgghhh! Although I own a copy of Turbo Cranium (it was an expensive gift that I am too polite to get rid of), I think the game is shit. It is a mish-mash of other boring games like Pictionary, Charades, and Trivial Pursuit all dolled up to look like new. It's unoriginal and favours certain players over others due to their specific skill sets. I remember the one game I played with a dyslexic friend who kept drawing the activity where you have to spell words backwards. Totally unfair and embarassing for him. And just not fun.

In general, I find most party games suffer from these same issues. Make sure you play Trivial Pursuit on a team with someone who knows a lot about sports and play Pictionary with someone who can draw really well. I don't find this fun. I think everyone should be on the same footing independent of their experiences. Luckily, there are some great "party" games out now which deal with these issues or even bring people's life experiences and personalities into the game. I've even played a few of them....

Apples to Apples is tons of fun and stupidly easy to learn. Each player has a hand of cards with various names of people, places, things, and events. An adjective is flipped over by the judge for that round and everyone picks what they think will match from their hand. The choices are mixed up and then the judge reveals them one by one. The judge picks their favourite and the person who played it gets the point. The fun of the game is trying to sell the judge on your card and dissuade him from the others without revealing your pick. Great game and I've enjoyed this with every group I've played it with.

Wits & Wagers just came out a few years ago and has been a big hit. Haven't played it yet but I have heard it's a blast and am planning to pick up a copy (despite the fugly artwork). It's a trivia game but all the answers are numerical. People bet and then place their answers in order on a betting mat. Once the answers are done players can bet on the answers that they think are the closest without going over (shades of Price is Right?) So a player can possibly be totally wrong with every answer they provide and yet still win by betting shrewdly on the numbers that seem the safest or are closer than theirs. Very clever and very inclusive to everyone's different levels of knowledge. Love it.

Say Anything comes from the same people as Wits and Wagers and sounds like fun. Descriptions online make it sound a bit like Apples to Apples except you write your own answers down. Then you get to vote on which answer you think will be picked kinda like Wits & Wagers. Sounds interesting and great in a group of people just getting to know each other.


If you like Bingo, but wish it had some strategy, you should get a hold of Take It Easy, which has been out for over a decade. My copy has seen many, many plays in the last 10 years and still comes out occasionally. Basically everyone plays the exact same set of tiles in the exact same order, trying to make as many lines across the board as possible. Despite playing everything the same the variety of scores is always huge. Lots of fun, very tense, and plays with up to 8 people.

Last one I'll mention is a new game out of France called Dixit that is just starting to make waves. Every player takes turns as the storyteller who is given a single picture to describe in either a word or a sentence. After this, every player chooses a picture from their hand and all of them are mixed up and then laid out. Players vote on which picture they think is the storytellers. Here's the thing: if everyone guesses the storyteller's card then he gets no points. If at least one picks it but not all, then the storyteller gets the points. What makes this even more interesting is the beautifully elusive artwork. Totally up to interpretation which adds so much. Can't wait to play this one.
Check out the beautiful artwork for Dixit here.