Sometimes I think people are willing to cut games a little slack when they look really great but don’t play as well as they should.  Whereas I’m more likely to enjoy a game that is unattractive but that plays really well.  (What does that say about me?)   So when there is a good looking game that’s really fun to play I get downright excited!   (See my article on Pentago…I was drooling while playing that game!)  Anyway, Dweebies is just that kind of game.  I saw it at Gamewright’s booth at Toy Fair in February and have been dying to have a copy ever since.  The metal packaging is adorable but it’s the super cute Dweebies illustrations that I enjoy.  There are doctor Dweebies, yoga Dweebies, super Dweebies, foam-finger Dweebies and so on, and each one of them has been carefully illustrated for maximum cuteness!  (And yes, we name them as we play them!)

There are 54 Dweebies cards in the deck (27 different illustrations) and the goal is to collect as many of them as you can.  (And why wouldn’t you want to – they’re so CUTE!)  Players each starts with 5 cards in their hand and  replenishes as they play.  One by one players place Dweebies in a grid pattern in the center of the table by adding a Dweebie above, below or next to any other Dweebie.  To capture Dweebies you must create “bookends” of two of the same Dweebies and you collect all of the Dweebies in the middle.  Look at the the grainy illustration below  to get a better idea of what I mean by “bookends.”  Essentially, the two matching Dweebies must be on the ends.  Once you do this, you collect the two bookend Dweebies and any Dweebies in between them.

The other rule of the game is that apparently Dweebies don’t like to be lonely so if someone picks up a line of Dweebies and it creates some loner Dweebies or a couple of unconnected packs of Dweebies players must play cards to connect the Dweebies before adding cards elsewhere on the mass.  (Just FYI, the grainy image shows 2 game scenarios…I know that because someone couldn’t place a second bookend Dweebie until the two groups had been connected.)

It’s an easy overall concept for younger players to grasp, but there is another layer to this card game that makes it appealing to us older players as well.  Each Dweebie has a dot in the corner of the card.  This tells you how many of this particular Dweebie are in the deck.  The dots range from 1 to 4 and you’ll find that there is a strategy to playing the 1-dot “blocking” Dweebies and 4-dot Dweebies.   Obviously it’s very advantageous to count the cards, and it’s a great way to teach the younger crowd why card counting can be important in games.  Yep, that last sentence really solidifies it…. I’m a game geek.  But is that really wrong?

Dweebies Stats:
~$10 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, internet retailers and mom & pop game shops
2 to 6 (Never tested it with 5 or 6…sorry)
10 Minutes or less
Ages 8 and up

A friend of mine was over recently and asked if I could recommend a card game that’s “like UNO, but not UNO, but is easy for non-game people to get, like UNO — oh and it also has to be fun for two players.”  Huh.  So we headed up to my hallway of games and I started pulling products out for him to look at.  He really wanted something simple, fun and that takes 2 seconds to learn.  Something “familiar.”

The game that really resounded with him was Ratuki by USAOPOLY.  This game has been through testing several times and has made it to my list of games to review, but it kept getting pushed down the list because it almost felt “too familiar” in my opinion.  All of the play testers really enjoyed playing the game, but EVERY ONE of them said “it feels like another game I’ve played with just cards.”  And they’re right, it does BUT it has one neat and unique feature that makes it different and those are the cards themselves.  Instead of all of the cards being numbered in the same fashion, they have five different ways of writing the numbers 1-5.  They use pips on a die, roman numerals, the word, a hand and the standard number.  (see the image above)  This little change makes all the difference – and makes the game worth owning.

Ratuki is all about speed and each round ends when a player runs out of cards.  During a round, there is the potential of three stacks in the center of the play area and everyone can play on those three stacks.  Using the deck of cards in front of them, players build on the center stacks by playing a number one above or below the top card on the stack.  The goal is to get play a five and capture the stack.  At the end of the round, players count up the cards they captured, subtract any cards of their own they were left with and that’s their score.  Play by rounds or play to a certain number – it’s up to you!

The game is fast and frenzied, and to reset for a new round is a snap because players have their own color cards.  My friend and I played one quick round of the game and he really enjoyed it.  Like the other game testers, he thought the game had a familiar “feeling,” which was exactly what he was looking for, a “comfort food” kind of game.

Also, if you don’t have time to read the directions – check out the nice graphic explanation at www.playratuki.com.

Ratuki Stats:
$10-$15 at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Specialty Retailers
2-5 Players
3+ Minutes (totally depends on how many rounds you play or how many points you play up to)
Ages 7 and up

Continuing the theme from my last article (travel games) this game may not be the easiest one to find, but if you do, it will make any road trip feel like a party.  ReFraze is a trivia game that takes movie, song and TV show titles and changes them (using synonyms) so you have to decipher what the names actually are.

Want to try one?  It’s a TV show:  “Carpet Mice”  Do you know what it is?  If not, there is one clue each card – for this it gives the genre, which is “Children’s Show.”  Now do you know?  (The answer is at the bottom of the article.)

The concept behind ReFraze is a pretty straightforward and it has a great brain teaser/trivia feel to it.  It was invented by Ann and Ron Fowler and this is what Ann had to say about it’s inception:

A few years ago, I was responsible for coming up with games for our annual Book Club Christmas party.  Along with a couple of other silly games, I took the names of Christmas songs and carols and “Refrazed” them.  Everyone loved it, and after a couple of different people asked for copies of what I had done, I had one of those ‘aha’ moments.  With Ron’s know-how, ReFraze was born.  (If it was only in my hands, I’d still be walking around with a bag full of slips of paper!)

Recently I took my copy of ReFraze: Movies 1986 to Present on a road trip with me.  There were four of us playing and we played it almost the entire trip!  The only downfall was that we plowed through about half of the 400 cards on our one-day journey, but did we enjoy it?  Absolutely!  Did it dull the pain from the never ending view of the flat Illinois countryside?  Oh my gosh yes!

I know there are people out there who like to do trivia on long road trips and I urge them to toss ReFraze into the mix.  As you can see there are plenty of different themes to choose from — I had a bunch of movie junkies with me so I stuck with something I knew they would love.  So go ahead and find one that will shorten your next long car ride – just be sure to grab paper and a pen if you want to keep score!

Oh and I also hear that there is an electronic game in the works…can’t wait for that!

A: Rugrats

ReFraze Stats:
~ $17 for Standard Editions and ~$15 for the Junior Edition and look here to find where it can be purchased near you.
2 or More Players (can be played in teams)
Play for as long as you want!
8 and Up for the Junior Edition (but closer to 12 or 15 and up for some of the other editions)

Earlier today I had an interesting conversation with the owner of the Chicago toy and game store Cat and Mouse about how there are tons of games that ”borrow” the play patterns of other games.  Some even look the same: Bananagrams and Scrabble Apple (both which are similar to Take Two), Yahtzee and Kismet, Connect Four and Toot and Otto to name a few.  Now my mother always told me that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” so I guess that the duplication indicates that the initial product had a level of success that the new game would like to attain.  And that got me thinking.

As an inventor I’d like to believe that the original version is always the superior one; for how could anyone improve upon my idea?!  Well, after quickly glancing through my games when I got home I found the perfect example of when the newer version improved upon the initial game and believe it or not the NEW version had been out since 1954.  (My copy is from 1962 & it’s seen a lot of games.)

Mille Bornes was developed by Edmond Dujardin and was very, VERY similar to the game Touring which was invented around 1906 and then picked up by Parker Brothers in 1925.  Touring was manufactured until it was replaced in their line by Mille Bornes sometime after 1954 which makes sense because who really needs two automobile racing card games in their line?

So what was the improvement that made all the difference?  The coup-fourré.  This is when a player earns a large bonus for stopping an opponent from playing a hazard card such as a flat tire or an accident that would impede their progress.  You do this by having “Safety” in your hand when the hazard is played.  This little difference made the game so much better.  Now when you go to play a hazard on an opponent your actions could be very costly.  However once a particular safety has been played (there are four different ones, seen below) it’s kind of a free for all.  Sounds a little complicated, but really Mille Bornes is a very easy and fun game to play.  Hence the half a century — and then some — this game has been on the market.   In fact, you can still find it at Target and Toys ‘R Us today for right around $5.99 if you don’t already have a copy.  Look in the card game area, it’s manufactured by Winning Moves now.

Now I know that this one example should not indicate the rule, but I think it goes to show that sometimes game play can be improved upon.  But more often I think that the copy-cats are reusing a particular style of game play so that it is familiar, fun and easier to learn – something I guess we should chalk up to flattery.

Mille Bornes Stats:
~$5.99 and up at Target, Toys ‘R Us, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com
2, 3, 4 or 6 Players (commonly played as a partnership game with 4 players, 2 per team)
35-45 Minutes
Ages 8 and up

**Cat and Mouse Game Store is located at 2212 W. Armitage in Chicago and is absolutely worth a look.

I find it only fitting that after returning from a nice vacation in France I review a game based on the gory French Revolution.  Nothing says fun like lobbing off the heads of tax collectors, wealthy priests, bad nuns, palace guards and a variety of evil nobles!  Vive la France!

In the card game Guillotine, players represent rival guillotine operators vying to behead the most prestigious nobles, clergy, civic leaders and famous historic characters like Robespierre in order to earn points and gain popularity with the bloodthirsty crowd.  Marie Antoinette and King Louis will fetch you 5 points whereas the lowly Royal Cartographer and Piss Boy are only worth 1 point.

During three rounds, which represent three days of beheadings, a line of characters head to the guillotine.  At the end of every turn you will lob off the head of the first person in line, but the line isn’t set in stone.  You have action cards that cause chaos and milling about.  Each turn you have the option to play one of your action cards and hopefully it will move a more valuable noble to the front of the line for you to collect.  Maybe the Count trips, a lady in waiting faints and is sent to the back of the line or the Duke insist on going next because he’s royalty.   Throughout the three “days” the action cards help you accumulate points and avoid pitfalls like beheading an innocent victim or the Hero of the People, which will cost you valuable points.

Guillotine provides a small lesson in French history and it also challenges you to spend some time planning out your future turns.  For example, if you manage to behead a whole slew of palace guards, their point value goes up.  And there are ways to end the day early, but you really have to pay attention to the points your opponents have racked up and it’s best to keep track of the nobles that didn’t get beheaded and instead ended up in the discard pile.  So it’s not a mindless game; it’s got some strategy mixed with a really funny topic.  (Not funny if you were there, but the drawings on the cards just crack me up!)

This game was invented by Paul Peterson and was released on Bastille Day in 1998  (*trivia question: do you know when Bastille Day is?) but it’s still pretty easy to find online or at small game stores – usually ones that focus on roll playing games since it’s manufactured by Wizards of the Coast which is probably best known for Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. (*it’s July 14..a good day for baguettes, champagne and escargots!)

Guillotine Stats:
~$12-$15 at Amazon.com, FunAgainGames.com,  AreYouGame.com and Mom & Pop Roll Playing Stores
2-5 Players
~15-30 Minutes (Depending on the number of players)
Ages 12 and up

To me it’s sad that there are so many fun, entertaining and overall good games on the market that are virtual unknowns – especially when they cost less than a single movie ticket.  And all we really need is a glowing review from someone who’s actually played the game to convince us to try it.  So maybe there’s a lesson here.  Read more articles on this website (shameless plug) or ask your friends to play or borrow their favorite games.

I’m sure you’re wondering which game was so good that I insisted on recommending it to a total stranger; it was Gamewright’s There’s a Moose in the House.  While Gamewright isn’t the biggest game company out there, I’m sure you’ve seen at least a couple of their games marketed under the “12 Minute Games” brand (of which my favorite is Wig Out).   There’s a Moose in the House takes approximately 15 minutes, so it didn’t quite make the 12 minute cut but it’s still a winner in my eyes.  Gamewright’s too.  When the inventor, Scott Anderson, showed it to Gamewright it was love at first sight and it quickly rose to be one of their top selling games of all time.  They even liked his photo-real artwork so much that they kept the style when they produced the cards.  This is really impressive since games usually go through a series of modifications and changes so the product you see on the shelf is often quite different from the game that was initially pitched to the game company, especially when it comes to the artwork.  It’s similar to books going to an editor before they are published; they’re polished and tweaked until they are the best they can be.

So then where does one get the idea to make a game around a moose invading different rooms of a house?  You’ll never believe it but Scott got the idea from seeing a moose attempt to wander into a woman’s house on an episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos!  With this humorous image in his head, he set out to make a game he could play with his kids and that’s just what he did.  There’s a Moose in the House is a non-reading game for kids 8 and up and it’s just as fun for adults as it is for the under ten crowd.  The goal is to put as many moose as you can into the rooms of your opponent’s house but they can block you by playing door cards to close off a room or trapping a moose by using, what else, but a moose trap.  Who knew an oversized mousetrap baited with lettuce could trap a moose, but then again if it’s going to keep the moose out of my bathtub, that’s fine by me.  In the end, the only place a moose belongs in your house is on your game shelf or in your refrigerator, but only if it’s chocolate mousse.

There’s a Moose in the House stats:

• ~$6 at any major retailer
• 2-5 players (but 2 is not as fun)
• ~15 minutes
• Ages 8 and up

Typically, all it takes to get a game lover interested in a new game is a glowing review from another game junkie – that’s it, they’re sold!  Earlier this year, I raved about Apples to Apples to my sister so she bought a copy and when it came time for her to buy a gift for my party game-loving aunt, she bought her a copy too.  Normally, I would expect excitement since this game was coming to her so highly recommended, but she didn’t seem excited.  Now, maybe it was the young sounding name or the bright red box that she didn’t immediately embrace, but we assured her it was a great game and awaited her review.

I love games and recommend a lot of games to friends and family, but it’s not like I’ve never met a game I didn’t like.  Sadly, I’ve come across far too many that I found painfully dull.  I give a pretty fair shake to any game that crosses my path; ones with weird names, dry themes, strange artwork – it’s all out there, but it’s the essence of the game that counts.  I have to WANT to play it – and once I’ve finished, I have to want to play it again.  And in that area, Apples to Apples gets very high marks.

So a couple months after Apples to Apples traveled from the Chicago birthday party back to my aunt’s home in Madison, I received a glowing review of the game in my inbox.  While I wondered why it had taken so long for her to play it, it was apparent it had immediately gained an important position on her game shelf.

For an adult with a circle of friends who love party games, I was astonished to hear that no one in the group had ever played it before.  For just about $25, it really is a party in a box – and a heavy box at that since the game is made up of pounds and pounds of cards.  Most of the cards are random words ranging from “Sunday Drivers” to “Angry Hornets” to “Televangelists” to “Loan Sharks” but a smaller number of cards are adjectives like “Industrious” and “Explosive.”

The game is simple: one player reads an adjective card like “Cuddly” and then players toss a word card from their hand that best fits the description into a pile.  Cards like “Napoleon Bonaparte,” “Meat Cleavers,” “Leeches” and “Firefighters” will be lobbed into the pile and then it’s up to the adjective reader to determine which card best fits the round’s adjective.  Personally, I don’t find meat cleavers cuddly at all, I wouldn’t want to cuddle with the diminutive military leader Napoleon Bonaparte and while leeches do cuddle up to you, my vote is still for firefighters since I’m dating one.

Part of the humor comes from the limited number of cards in your hand.  Because you’re only allowed five word cards at a time, you may have to decide whether to play “James Bond,” “Root Beer Floats” or “Stonehenge” for the adjective card “Legendary.”  Overall, it ends up being a hilarious mish mash of very literal to extremely funny interpretations of the adjective.  In the end, the winner is the player who has their word cards chosen the most times.

Forget strategy, calculating odds or an enormous lexicon, this game is easy for anyone to play – even those “non-game” friends.   And believe it or not, this game has been on the market long enough to sell over a million copies and proving that great games never die, Mattel just purchased it from the company that made it what it is today, Out of the Box games.  So this gem of a game will be on all mass market shelves for hopefully years to come, but definitely through this next holiday season.

And for all of you who want to know what took my aunt so long to play it – I asked – she said she was terrified by the number of cards.  Apparently, there was a bit of mental scarring after a five hour Trivial Pursuit marathon she experience just before she received the game.  Just goes to show you should never judge a game by its piece count!

Apples to Apples stats:

• ~$25 at any major retailer
• 4-10 players
• ~20-35 min. (depending on the number of players)
• Ages 12 and up (I say some smart 10 year olds can play too)

If your family is anything like mine, there’s a whole shelving unit dedicated to old games in the basement of your parent’s house.  There are some well-worn classics like Monopoly, Sorry and the version of Clue with the stable and fountain from the late ‘80s.  But it’s also teeming with games you’ve never heard of and definitely never played because they sound so dull you’d rather clean the basement than play the game.  Like “The IRS Game” I recently unearthed in my father’s house.  He’s a CPA so I’m sure it was some sort of gag gift, but honestly, who would want to play a game about the organization that makes sure we stay good citizens and pay our taxes?  I left that one where I found it.

The game I was looking for comes in a small box and was invented just after the turn of the century — the last century that is.  It’s called Pit and although the name isn’t bad, it’s the “commodities trading” theme that is outright unappealing.  I’ll admit, it’s pretty hard to convince a group of players to sit down for a fun game of commodities trading, but I managed to sucker some friends into playing recently.  They didn’t have much of a choice since we were out of town and their alternatives were pretty slim, but I was happy that they obliged and promised it wouldn’t disappoint.

As one of my all-time favorite party games, Pit is easy to explain, even easier to learn and it’s quick.  The game is made up of rounds that are a free-for-all of people trading cards until they’ve “cornered the market” on one commodity, meaning they managed to collect every single wheat or soybean card in the game.  During this process people are feverishly yelling how many cards they want to trade, reaching across the table and over other player’s hands to conduct the card swap in hopes of finding the last couple cards they are missing.  The frenzy comes to halt when a player triumphantly rings the bell to signal that they have cornered the market.  As the other players sigh, the winner collects points and the next round is started.  The quick, fast rounds keep everyone excited, but adding twists like silent rounds or playing with the bull and bear cards add another level to play with the bull acting like a wild and the bear like an old maid.

While I have an older version of Pit that I found buried in a dusty corner, this game can be purchased new for less than $20.  It comes with eight different commodities to trade and a bell.  Sadly, since this game isn’t as well known as it should be, it probably won’t be available in your local Wal-Mart, but according to the manufacturer, it can be found at Toys ‘R’ Us stores nationwide.  There are also plenty of online retailers including Amazon.com who carry the game and it’s worth the 3-5 day shipping wait.  But if that’s too long, check out www.winning-moves.com to find a store near you that carries this classic game.

In the end, even though my friends had some pretty low expectations going into the game, when we finally decided to stop and grab some dinner they were all amazed at how much fun it was.  There have already been some requests for me to bring Pit with me whenever we get together next.

So grab 3-8 of your closest friends (over the age of 7) and spend the afternoon “cornering the market!”  Maybe just leave out the game’s theme when you ask them to play.

Pit stats:

• ~$15 Toys ‘R Us, Barnes and Noble or online retailers
• 3-8 players
• ~2 minutes a round (so play lots!)
• Ages 7 and up