When it comes to “Junior” or “Family” versions of games I usually feel that a game loses a little of the magic or gets watered down to make it age appropriate for the younger set, but I really enjoyed the family version of Wits & Wagers!  I thought the changes the folks at North Star Games made to the original game were well thought out and the game doesn’t lose any of it’s magic.

Just as in Wits & Wagers (read that review here), Wits & Wagers Family starts each round with a question where all of the answers will be numbers.  Each player writes down their best guess and then all of the answers cards are organized in a row from lowest to highest.  Simple enough.  Then players each take their two “Meeples” (people shaped movers, see above) and they place the large one and their small one on the answers they think are correct.  Just as in original Wits & Wagers, you can vote for your own but sometimes it’s best to look to someone who has more knowledge regarding the question and vote for their answer.  Once all of the votes are cast, the answer is read and the winning answer is the one that is closest without going over.  Players with a large Meeple on the correct answer get two points, whereas the small Meeple is worth one.  An additional point is awarded to the player who wrote down the correct answer as well.  Points are tallied on the wipe off scoreboard.

Overall, I thought their use of “Meeples” was a really clever way of omitting the not-so-kid-friendly betting tokens.  It’s also great for people who aren’t real gamers or are intimidated by the betting and odds aspect of Wits & Wagers.  My only concern with the game is that some of the questions were a little too easy.  (We all knew there were 8 crayons in the first box of Crayolas.)  I know I said something similar about Take 5, so it might be that my brain is filled with too much useless knowledge because of excessive game playing and trivia writing, which is distinctly possible.  But there is an easy solution if you agree with me, grab the box of cards from Wits & Wagers and just omit any inappropriate ones.  Otherwise, just skip the easy ones in the Family version; there are plenty of fun and interesting random tidbits within the cards.

Wits & Wagers Family Stats:

$15 to $20 at Amazon, Toys R Us, Barnes & Noble,  AreYouGame.com
3 -10 players
15-20 minutes
Ages 8 and up

Endless Games did a nice job of summing up the game play of their new board game, “Name 5,” in the title so this review was pretty short, but the game’s inventor, Brian Turtle, was nice enough to share how he came up with the game.  Here’s what he said:

“Yes, I thought I was a one-trick-pony after having initial success as an inventor with The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and never writing a “sequel”.  But lo and behold, much like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Name 5 is a parlor game that my friends and I would play while waiting for the bars to “get going” back in my young, single Jersey Shore days.  We would have a few Budweisers over rounds of “Name 5 movies with Kurt Russell”; “Name 5 songs by KISS”; “Name 5 actors from the TV show TAXI”… and so on.  The game was always there long after those summers were traded off in favor of fatherhood and “responsibility.”  Mike Gasser (Endless Games “el Presidente”), Kevin McNulty (VP of Sales), and I would challenge one another with Name 5 categories all the time until one day Mike finally chimed in with, ‘Guys, we play this game all the time. Why don’t we box it and sell it. We are a GAME COMPANY after all!’ So that’s what we did!”

Overall Name 5 is a fun listing game, but the testers felt that some of the topics were just too darn easy even with a 30 second time limit!  During the first test, each team only lost one Name 5 challenge each: “Bon Jovi Songs” and “NFL Hall of Famers.”  This made the game feel like winning was going to be determined by rolling high, winning “Flip Flops” (where two teams go back and forth – sometimes for quite a while) and it ended up being a battle to complete all five of the categories on a single card in 90 seconds at the end.  It wasn’t bad – sometimes it was just too easy, but the second go around we changed the rules slightly and allowed the card-reading player (or team) to PICK which topic they wanted to give their opponent (on wilds it was a choice between two topics).  With the change I felt like my brain got more of a workout and it added a nice element of “stump your neighbor” that everyone really liked.

I urge you to try Name 5 out.  It’s a fun party game that everyone can be good at —and if they’re too good, do what The Game Aisle testers did and stick ‘em with the hardest topic on the card!

Name 5 Stats:

~$25 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, AreYouGame.com right now and Toys ‘R Us in the fall
2 or more players
~30 minutes as long as someone can do that last card!
Ages 12 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)

Since I just got back from a trip to beautiful Las Vegas, it seems like a great time to review a game with a gambling theme.  I’m talking about Wits & Wagers!

North Star Games was nice enough to send me a copy to review which I was thrilled about since it’s been on my “to buy and try” list for a very long time.  Truthfully, I’m not a big gambler; in fact I lost $4.52 in Vegas.  (I was playing the penny slots…but that’s 452 pennies!!  Thank god I don’t bet dollars!)

But enough about my issues, let’s talk about the game.  I loved it!  It’s trivia meets gambling and the best thing is you really don’t have to know much trivia to win.  Here’s the scoop.  Every round starts with a trivia question being read.  Each player (or team) scrawls an answer on their card.  Answers are always numbers their easily organized on the nice fabric mat in numerical order and then people place their bets.  The numbers that are at the extremes – the highest and the lowest – pay out at the highest odds, whereas the numbers in the middle of the pack will only pay out 2-1 or 3-1.  Regardless, you’re looking for the number closest to the correct answer.

Betting is really interesting in this game because numbers closer to the middle seem to indicate that they’re a safe bet, but  you also want to pay attention to who wrote the answer.  For example, one of the questions is “The record time for the Daytona 500 car race was set in 1980.  In miles per hour, what was the winner’s average speed?”  I’m probably not going to go with my sister’s answer because she doesn’t know much about cars.  Years ago she thought the coolant tank was where the windshield washer fluid went in her car, so of course I’d be much more likely to go with a gear-head friend who has a vague idea of what the answer might be.  And if the question was “In what year was the first G.I Joe action figure sold?” I’d go with my friend Scott because he probably has enough G.I. Joes to give one to each citizen of Rhode Island.  However, if it’s something that is completely off everyone’s radar like “How many feet of wire are in a flattened Slinky?” it may be time to rely on what ends up near the center of the board – or go for the big score if I think it’s one of the more extreme answers and worth higher odds.

In Wits & Wagers, all answers are closest without going over so it has a little bit of that classic Price is Right feel that we all love.  The only thing I didn’t like is that I have to get a big group of people together to play it.  While you can play it with 4 players, it is so much more fun when you have closer to 6 or 7 and it can be played with up to 20.

Overall Wits & Wagers is a trivia game that you really don’t need to be that great at trivia for.  It helps if you know your opponents but if you were a rock star at multiple-choice tests back in school, you’re golden.

Wits & Wagers Stats:
~$24-$30 at Target, Borders and Amazon.com
4-20 Players
~ 25 Minutes
Ages 8 and up