I love finding new games to play as a family especially as we get closer to the festive season and I have heard great comments about The Game of Things over the last few months so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of the game to give it a try.
The Game of Things comes in a fabulous wooden box that makes it feel like a very grown up game. The game needs a minimum of 4 players but can be played by lots of them. It is also recommended for ages 14 to adult as some of the cards may not be suitable but if children can read and write, and parents remove any cards that the children might not understand, then they can definitely join in.
The Game of things box contains 300 topic cards, 8 pencils, a score pad and a response pad. Setting up the game couldnt be easier with one player taking score and every player taking a response sheet and a pencil (if more than 8 players then you will need more pencils). The topic cards are placed face down with reach of all players
To start the game you need to choose one player to be the reader for the first round. They choose one of the cards and reads it out loud. The Topic cards are not questions so there are no wrong answers which makes this a great game for those with little to no general knowledge.
Each player writes a response to the topic on one strip of paper from their response sheet and passes these to the reader. The response does not need to be the truth, it could be funny, silly, a complete lie or even something that you think someone else might write down. The aim is for the other players not to know that you wrote that response. When all of the players have written their response then the reader reads all of them out loud.
The player to the left of the reader gets to guess first and tries to match a response to a player. If they guess correctly then the reader give the response back to its writer and that player is out of the round and they can guess again. If they guess wrong then they stay in the game but it passes to the next player to guess. The round ends when only one player has not been matched to their response.
To score the game you get 1 point for each correct guess and 2 points for the person left at the end of each round.
When the round is finished then the player to the left of the reader becomes the reader for the next round. The game ends after an agreed number of rounds or after every player has been the reader for one round. The winner is the player with the most points.
Now the reader should be able to join in the play and guess who wrote what but as it is handwriting I know that as the reader I would be able to work out who wrote what in my family so there are a few notes at the end of the instructions which recommend that if this is the case then the reader should write a response but not participate in the guessing part of the game. I think this is definitely a good idea for smaller groups.
The Game of Things would be a great game for the festive period when you have a large group of people get together with a few beers as the responses given can be hilarious. We definitely recommend The Game of Things as a game to place under the Christmas tree for the family to enjoy.