Review: 5 Second Rule

5 Second Rule is a simple and fun party game from Patch Products. The name of the game recalls the tongue-in-cheek theory that it's valid to eat a food item that's fallen on the floor - as long as it remains on the floor for no longer than 5 seconds. The game plays on this idea in its tag line "Just Spit it Out!" - referring to the game mechanic of blurting out answers as quickly as possible, no matter what ends up being said.

That's the core of what can make the game funny; the intense (though not unpleasant) time pressure of the five-second timer (a fun and unique spiral tube with a "zoop!" sound effect and ball bearings that roll from top to bottom in about five seconds) can cause uninhibited players to come out with answers that are by turns clever, creative, outrageous or just plan ridiculous. Sometimes one's train of thought will lead one's brain down the wrong path: Name three Summer Olympic events. "Javelin; Decathlon, uh..... Triathlon?" Sometimes two of the items are easy, one is more challenging: Name three Pepsi products. "Pepsi, Diet Pepsi.... Mountain Dew." Sometimes there are open-ended questions that open the door to a puckish sense of humor, as one of my female players found: Name three ways to make a good first impression. "Wink; Smile; Show your boobs." Another female player revealed that one of the three things she liked to do on a weekend was "Kiss my honey." Sometimes if you know very little about a subject, you can find a way to a simple and winning answer anyway: Name three Pixar movies. "Toy Story 1, 2 and 3."

5 Second Rule has the essential prerequisites of a good party game: it's simple and can be explained in less than one minute. It has a good level of challenge and most of the cards are neither too easy or too difficult (my players found the yellow sides of the cards to be more challenging and interesting than the red sides, but they are not intended as such by the game makers). And there is an interesting psychological subtext involved as to what players shout out and what causes them to do so. Players who "bring the funny" in their responses, open the door to running jokes for the rest of the night - in this case, jokes about making a good first impression. Families will appreciate the game as well, as all the cards are family-friendly and should be manageable for all players age 10 and up.

My players and I liked 5 Second Rule. I found it far superior to a similar game I saw recently called Name Five. The challenges on the cards are much more balanced and there's no random dice rolling or needless game board (Interesting note: 5 Second Rule appeared in an earlier edition from University Games UK which included a game board with a scoring track. The Patch edition wisely does away with the unnecessary board and instead players keep as points the cards they successfully answer, as in Apples to Apples).

5 Second Rule will play best in a group of uninhibited, relaxed party gamers who aren't afraid to shout out something funny. One player noted it could be great for car trips, since there's no board.

Learn more at Patch's Web site.

Review: Spontuneous

Hardcore party gamers who enjoy music and singing are probably familiar with the game Encore, which has been around (in various editions) since 1989. Basically it's two teams, draw a card, read a word on the card, the teams go back and forth racking their brains to come up with - and sing - songs with that word in the lyrics. It's a fun game with the right crowd, but in my view, it has a fatal flaw: if you're playing with people with a mind for retaining and recalling lyrics, the game can go on for hours - and no party game is fun for THAT long.

Enter SPONTUNEOUS, a new singing party game released last year. The inventor of Spontuneous had never played Encore when he designed the game, yet Spontuneous solves the "Endless back and forth song battle" by limiting the challenge to one singer: either whoever can belt out a song first, or if no one can, the "Tunesmith" who came up with the challenge word ("Trigger word") must prove there is a real song with that word in it. By singing at least five words of it, one of which must be the trigger-word. As in Encore, inventing a song is prohibited, but unlike in Encore, the rules recommend making any chosen song "commonly known or recognizable." (More on that in a minute.)

As with any singing game, you will need some players who aren't afraid to sing. You don't have to be Edith Piaf, but at least be Bob Dylan - get something of a melody out, even if it's off-key and your voice is cracking. For the shy, Spontuneous still works wonderfully well with family groups and close friends. An interesting facet of the game is how different people's experience of music is - I recently played with four other players, all women, who were experts in show tunes, country music and hymms and spiritual music. I myself am based in quirky early-1990s singer-songwriters. So as you can guess, we were stumping each other quite a bit. This is where the balance of the "commonly known or recognizable" song rule comes into play. If you disregard this rule, a lot of stumping will happen and multiple people will end up at the finish line and the game will never end. If you follow the rule too closely, and the trigger words trigger songs that are TOO easily thought of, the same problem could occur. As the rules say, "Players judge; majority rules. " The game FAQs suggest that players should remember it's only a game, and invites them to use Google to settle disputes "if you must."

I have been waiting for a game like Spontuneous for a long time. It solves the "Endless battle" problem and makes for a quick and fun romp around the board. The fact that it's a race to be the first to get a song out (rather than a long silent period of time with everyone thinking) makes it more fast and fun. There are even cards that cause random things to happen when you land on a "music note" space. I can heartily recommend Spontuneous to anyone who loves the joy of music and singing. If you've ever burst into song when someone said a certain word, you know where the inspiration for - and fun heart and soul of - Spontuneous comes from.

Review: Morphology

In linguistics and biology, morphology is the study of the shape, structure, color, pattern and form of component parts and how they fit together. In the game world, Morphology is a fun twist on Pictionary that has you composing visual clues out of beads, popsicle sticks, rubber o-rings, wooden pawns and other colorful bits. It's a great game for people who can't draw, but it's also a great game for anyone who wants an exciting building-and-guessing challenge.

A simple "lily pad" game board serves as a scoring track, and some cool plastic frogs serve as the player tokens. One thing I like about Morphology is almost any number of people can play - you just form up into teams. Unless you have a really packed party, you'll probably want to play with two teams, but you could play with as many as 20 people (five people each in four teams) if you don't mind the game taking longer. Once you've got your teams and your frogs, the game begins.

The first two lily pads are "play" spaces, that is, you just play the basic game with no variation. This is to get you warmed up. The next six pads are "roll" spaces, meaning you roll the 6-sided die to determine what play variation you will use:

1. Everybody Plays - like an "All Play" in Pictionary or a "Club Cranium" in Cranium, the other team gets to play at the same time and maybe steal your point.
2. Eyes Closed - you'll be using all the components to build your word, but you need to do it with eyes closed, so make sure to arrange the stuff so you can find it
3. Weak Hand Only - do everything with your non-dominant hand, which for must of us is our left hand
4. String only - You only get to use the string. Luckily, the string is the most useful and versatile piece in the game.
5. You Pick Five - Choose five pieces to build your word (probably one of the five will be the string.)
6. Interception - If you can't get your team to guess correctly within the time limit, the other team gets a chance to confer and guess once after your time runs out.

The ninth and penultimate pad is a "Pick 3" space, meaning you choose only three items to build your word. This extra challenge gives the other teams a bit of a chance to catch up. Make it past Pick 3 to the FINISH pad and you win!

Playing Morphology is an absolute rush. The clues are challenging - each card has an "easy" and "hard" word, and even the easy ones can be tough (one card, for example, has "Monster" on the hard end, and "Nose hairs" on the easy end) - your success here will depend on what pieces you have to work with. (The different difficulty of the game variations might frustrate some players, but adds a good level of randomness to the game. Each successful round moves your frog forward one space, which is as it should be.)

Because you feel extra smart when you finally come up with the perfect, brilliant way to arrange the pieces to represent the word and your team guesses, you'll be high-fiving when that correct guess comes just in time. The corollary to this is things might get a little intense if you're playing with the sort of competitive folks who tap the sand timer while you're playing, just to make sure the sand is moving through expeditiously. But this is a game you'll remember - I'm still proud of how I finally managed to represent "dot" and "ladder" using just the string.

The components in Morphology are good quality wood, glass and plastic. The sand timer works well and there's no need to tap on it. And best of all, it has frogs! I had a small issue with one of the pieces, and Kate Ryan Reiling, creator of Morphology, was kind enough to assist me in making it right. I heartily recommend Morphology to anyone who likes creative, fun party games with a guessing component. But don't just take my word for it - it's Time magazine's #2 Toy of the Year for 2010!

Learn more about Morphology at http://www.morphologygames.com/

Worst. Game. Ever.

I was trying out "Google Patents" and this item came up in a search for board games.  

"A board game apparatus is provided which is intended to facilitate communication between parents and children regarding facts and attitudes in the area of human sexuality and to provide learning experiences which will lead to improved communication between parents and their children and adults."

This just seems like a bad idea.  Awkward all around, especially if the adult gets a lot of questions wrong (or if the kid knows much more than expected.)  This patent was awarded in 1980, though; I suppose kids in 2010 learn about this stuff from the web.  If parents in that era wanted to off-load the responsibility of teaching their kids about sex, the game makers should have made a game for kids to play without adults, and mitigate the embarrassment factor.  But the game doesn't seem to have anything to recommend it - there's just a plain track of squares on the board, the only concession any kind of styling is a lone sperm on square 25.

How about you - what's the most awkward, broken or just plain unfun game you've ever seen?

Dealing with Cards

Having recently been working on a couple of party games, the idea got into my head to look and see what the expectation was as regards how many cards should be included in a game - or at least, what the reality was of how many were generally found in games. Here's what I gathered.

Apples to Apples: The mother of all "play a card and everyone plays a card in response" games has 321 red cards, 107 green. Expansions have 216 green and 72 red. The "Party box" and wooden "Apple crate edition" each have the same 749 red cards and 249 green ones. Interestingly, the Party box and Apple crate are advertised as having "Over 1000 cards" but 749 plus 249 is, by my count, NOT more than 1000.

Dirty Minds: 304 "Clean answers" plus three "Dirty clues" for each.

Say Anything: Doesn't say in the instructions how many cards, but I count 80 with 5 questions on each, total 400 questions.

Cranium: original game had 800 cards, 200 of each sub-game activity. "Cranium Wow" had 600 cards, other editions had varying numbers

Wits and Wagers: 100 cards with 7 question each = 700 questions. Expansion Pack 1 has an additional 700 (better) questions.

Loaded Questions: original game has over 1000 questions. Booster pack has 128 cards with 4 questions each (about 500 questions.) "Loaded on the go" has 250 questions, "Adult" loaded questions has 300, the other editions have only 200. (more specific focus)

Trivial Pursuit: The crusty bewhiskered granddaddy of the modern party game takes the prize for most cards, as far as I have found. The original had 1000 questions. Newer version had 432 cards (72 of each category) with 6 questions on each card, total 2500 questions.

Time's Up: (commercial version of the "Celebrity" charades game) The original game had 432 cards with 2 names on each (864 names total.)

As an additional note, I discovered many games (A LOT of games) put more than one question on a card (wits and wagers, say anything, loaded questions, trivial pursuit, hummmble, encore, etc) - they put more than one question or game element on a card. This makes sense from a practical standpoint - it's much cheaper to print (and ship) a game that has a few cards with lots of content, than loads of cards with one item each. It also mitigates the problem of encountering a card a second or third time - if there are other items on the card, there is less chance of an already played element coming into play (a game buzzkill if there ever was one).

An additional note: SR wrote in with the following comment, which rings true: "The expectation of the players should have a lot to do with the number of cards. e.g., a game such as Monopoly has relatively few cards. But it is interesting that the meanings of the cards changes with accumlation/strategy. A simple "one-shot" type game where you just answer a question needs lots of questions to keep the variables/newness to a level to keep the interest of the players. however when the cards work with synergy than less are needed. Thus strategy games require fewer cards overall and are less entertaining to the A.D.D. crowd in general I would imagine."

This amusing diagram, sent to me by the Queen of Catan, summarizes the downward spiral of geekdom in several popular geek categories - with the notable exception of games. Therefore, I am taking it upon myself to create the game geek hierarchy, as follows:

Socially acceptable, even somewhat cool: the usual party games - Cranium in a metal tin from Starbucks; Taboo; Guesstures

A little geeky: the "lite" Euro games like Settlers

Pretty nerdy: Playing Settlers once a week; the more hard-core Euro games

So nerdy, your social life with normal people will be impacted: being a game group organizer; designing your own games

The loss of all shame: Don't be ridiculous - games are fun! Nothing to be ashamed about.

Designing a Party Game: A Case Study

Great piece here by Phil Harding on his recent game, Caption if You Can. CiYC is a neat looking, simple game of coming up with funny or clever captions for odd photographs. It's an idea I had myself, but he beat me to it! There's a video review of the game at The Dice Tower.

"Quip it" is a similar idea, in DVD form, by the folks who brought you the DVD movie game "Scene it."