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

Wanna be (sorta) famous?

North Star Games is looking for user-submitted questions for Wits & Wagers and user-submitted horrendous gift ideas for Crappy Birthday.  If you enjoy these games as much as I do, you might want to get your name on a card.

Contest details here.

A review of Fauna...

Okay, everyone, who wants to play a trivia game about guessing the weight, height, length, and natural habitats of various wildly obscure species of animals? Oh. No one? Right. Well, what if I said this animal trivia game was invented by Friedemann Friesse, the brilliant man behind Power Grid, Black Friday, and other modern classics of Euro-gaming. And maybe I should also mention the gameplay bears some similarities to that other great trivia game Wits and Wagers. Would that convince you? Still no? Perhaps you should read on and learn more about what I think is one of the most enjoyable trivia games to ever be published.  And it just happens to learn you tons about animals while you play it.

The version of Fauna we have been lucky enough to play is the latest from Montreal game company FoxMind and is the English-language version of the original German game from 2 years ago. The components are simple, excellently produced, and do exactly what they need to do. The board and cards are well-illustrated and I really can't complain about anything. This is a high-quality production of the kind you'd expect from Days of Wonder or Queen. The rules booklet, too, is quite well-done and covers a lot considering how simple the game really is.

This is an easy card?!?!?

So how does it work? Well, players have six betting cubes and play a series of rounds until someone reaches a pre-determined amount of points dependent on the number of players. Every round starts with a new player and an animal card is revealed by that player. Well, really only partially revealed as the top half of the card shows a picture of the animal and states how many areas on the board are the natural habitat for the animal and whether you can bet on it's weight, height, length, and/or tail length. The bottom half contains all the answers to these questions and so stays hidden until the end of the round. Once players know what they're betting on, each person in turn places a cube either on the map where they think the animal resides or on one of the squares corresponding to wight, height/length, or tail length. This goes on until all players do not want to play any more betting cubes and have passed. And then the answers are revealed and this is where the real cleverness begins. 

Every player who placed a cube in the correct natural habitats of the animal score points (more or less depending on how rare the animals habitats are) and the players who are in a region adjacent to one of the natural habitats almost always score points as well.  Similarly, players who guessed the right characteristics score big points and those adjacent to the correct answers on the scales also score some points.  So it seems like you should just throw down all 6 of your cubes in as many spots as possible, right?  But here's the tricky part - any cubes which don't score (on or next to a correct answer) get taken away temporarily and you only get one back at the beginning of every round, given that you'll always have a minimum of 3 to bet with.  Oh, nasty.  So now one wants to be a bit more careful with their betting cubes as they could lose half their cubes on a rather obscure animal on one turn and then not have the cubes to bet when they know all the correct habitats of the animal in the next round. 

So what seems like a rather childish game of animal trivia ends up turning into a tight little game of pushing-your-luck, betting wisely, and still knowing a bit about animal biology.  It's not deep but with 4 or 5 players (the sweet spot, in my mind) a player has to decide the most important places to bet before the spots get taken by other players.  The tension in choice can almost feel a bit like during the worker placement phase in Caylus, although much, much less painful.  So there is some strategy to the placing of the bets but knowledge plays a factor as well.  The game has the same lovely feeling that Wits and Wagers gives, of not needing to know every answer to be able to play well.  In fact, you can often bet cubes close to the "smart" player and score at least for adjacency points.  Of course this backfired in our last game when the world traveller amongst us had us all convinced that jaguars roam the savannahs of Africa and we all ended up losing our cubes (they reside mainly in South America, dontcha know!)  She was thinking of cheetahs.

Honey badger don't give a #@%$!

I can't say enough about this game.  I've played it a few times now and every game has been a lot of fun.  The rules are simple, the betting and revealing of answers is suspenseful, and you end up learning more then you ever needed to about the common garden snake.  There are two levels of difficulty (obscure vs. RIDICULOUSLY obscure animals) although we haven't bothered with the tough ones yet nor will we anytime soon.  I have had one or two people not so impressed with the game due to the trivia aspect so this may not be a hit for everyone.  But if you like Wits & Wagers or random trivia or even just the occasional episode of Planet Earth, I think you will love this game.  It only takes about 45 minutes, plays great with up to 6 players, and it's a total joy and if I had my way, it would be in every classroom across the country.  It's the type of game with major mass-market appeal that actually deserves to be flying off the shelves of every department store because it's so good.  And it's definitely one of my top games so far this year.

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!

National Gaming Day

Many libraries across the world are celebrating National Gaming Day tomorrow Saturday, Nov. 13th.  Check out the link here to see if your local library is having any events.  There will be board games and video games galore, including many generously donated copies of the delightful Wits and Wagers thanks to North Star Games.

I gotta say I've got mixed feelings about this event.  Now here me out:  On the one hand, I'm glad that board games are becoming more mainstream and libraries are realizing how great they are for teaching tools, social interaction, and all-around fun.  On the other hand, the more popular hobby gaming gets, the more new games will be designed and released each year.  And I barely have time to play all the ones I own.  And I can't seem to stop collecting more, no matter hard I try.  Oh, sweet agony...

(Thanks to Luke at North Star Games for the tip)

Wits & Wagers Family review... and contest giveaway!!!

A couple disclaimers before I approach this review.  First, I am a big fan of the original Wits & Wagers, it being one of the only party games I enjoy playing and one I will happily play at any time.  And second, I have only played Wits & Wagers Family with adults, not necessarily the intended target audience, as my extended family lives pretty far away.  Having said all that, the adults I played with were happy to try this version of W&W and in the end, we enjoyed it greatly.  Here's why...

Components and Rules

The components and artwork of the original W&W were quite nice and completely usable.  However, there just wasn't much actual art which makes sense given that it really is a trivia game. One of the delights of the family version are the new pictures on the score and answer boards and the cute little meeple pieces a la Carcassonne.  It actual makes the game quite appealing, even for us adults, and adds to the experience (I had the soccer-playing meeple!)  The trivia questions themselves are of the usual high-quality seen in other versions of the game.

The new rules are short and simpler than the original, which is not a bad thing at all given the target demographic.  This game took about 30 seconds to explain to adults and wouldn't take much longer for kids.  And as usual, there is added info about the designers and company in the rules leaflet - it is always nice to see credit where credit is due.  Verdict:  Excellent.  Very cute artwork and pieces, great colours, and crystal-clear super-simple rules.

Gameplay

The gameplay itself is basically the same as the original Wits & Wagers with a few changes.  For those who haven't tried the original, it's pretty simple.  A trivia question with a numerical answer is asked and everyone secretly writes down what they think the answer is.  Once everyone has a number written down, the answers are flipped over and ordered from smallest to largest.  Now here's the good part.  Everyone places their markers, a large meeple and a small meeple, on the answer they think is closest without going over.  So you don't need to know the right answer.  You don't even have to be close.  But you can guess who does have the right answer and bet according to them or even play it safe by going low.

The answer is revealed and the one which is closest without going over gets that player a point (think Price is Right...)  And then every small and large meeple on the winning answer scores its owner one or two points, respectively.  This is one of the key differences between the family version and the original.  In the original, the players can gamble as much money as they want to risk.  In this game, they only have two pieces to place simplifying the process greatly and minimizing the decisions.   And this isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I prefer the gambling aspect of the original myself but this removes some of the nastiness without completely removing the strategy.

This leads to the other major difference.  Players play to a set number of points which means our games went on for about 10-15 rounds.  This felt fine but definitely was longer than the set 7 rounds of the original.  Combine this with the lack of a timer for players and you have a longer game, perfect for a family but maybe not for gamers looking for a quick fix.  As well, the questions themselves are definitely made for a younger demographic (think lots of Disney questions) but we still found them surprisingly tough as adults...  maybe because we weren't the target audience.  Verdict:  Great.  The same fun of the original minus a bit of the tension.  Simpler but still quite enjoyable.

Conclusion

What can I say?  I enjoy the original W&W and this one ain't much different.  The scoring is simpler, as are the questions, so it will definitely be more appropriate for a family.  The game is also a little longer than the original which might be a negative for some but it still plays in about 30 minutes.  So it really depends who you are playing with.  For my group of friends, the original Wits & Wagers is perfect but in a family setting, the family version is ideal.  I'll be keeping both on hand so I can be playing this great game at any time.

And now for the GIVEAWAY!!!!!!

The great people at NorthStar Games who published this game are giving away two copies of it to some lucky readers of this little blog.  Here's what you have to do...

Send your name and the answers of the following two questions to domcontests@hotmail.com:

1)  Name two other games besides Wits & Wagers that are published by NorthStar Games.

2)  Which magazine named Wits & Wagers "Party Game of the Year"?

One entry for emailing plus one more for each correct answer for up to three entries!  (Hint:  the answers are on the company website http://www.northstargames.com/.)  You have until the end of Friday, April 30th to enter the contest and winners will be announced on Saturday, May 1st.  Good luck!

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....

A very dry summer....

I am in the final throes of my master's thesis (one week to go!) and not only am I not playing many games but I can't really afford to buy many games. Ugh. I walked into my FLGS and stared longingly at the 63 dollar "Le Havre" box knowing I only had enough to purchase "Wits & Wagers" for 30. Sigh. I have a dinner party to go to tomorrow so that's a reasonable excuse, I guess, to buy yet another game.

Thank goodness my neighbors are buying Dominion: Intrigue. Don't think I could wait until my new job starts in September to buy and play it... On the plus side, I'm heading home to BC the beginning of August and I always bring an empty suitcase when I go. The majority of my old collection (including Union Pacific and Samurai) is stored there in a friend's basement so I always come back to Ontario with a suitcase full of great games just aching to be played again.

Updated artwork and info for Wits & Wagers...

Just got a message from the designer of Wits & Wagers letting me know that the box art has actually been updated for the latest editions - see above (I had commented that the artwork was "fugly" in this post.) Apologies to them... Now you have all the the more reason to go pick up a copy of this great award-winning party game.

As well, for those who already own W&W, the first expansion pack will be unveiled this summer and available for purchase in September. Exciting...

Also, if you are able to make it to Origins Game Fair or Gen Con this year, the designers will be handing out some special promo cards for the game. Sigh. Anyone wanna buy me a plane ticket?

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.