Cranium: A Board Game That's Great At Parties!
Have you played Cranium yet?
Each year at Christmas time, my side of the family buys a new board game. And a couple years ago, Cranium was it. Since we had so much fun playing it there, Jim and I went out and bought our own game soon after that.
These days, it goes to almost every party we go to. (Okay, so that's usually only the boring adult New Year's Eve parties and an occasional football-themed party or something, but still...)
Why We Like Cranium
...Because it's 4 games in one!
You've got:
Pictionary
Charades
Name That Tune
Trivial Pursuit
My favorites are Pictionary (where you sometimes have to draw with your eyes closed!) and Charades -- these are two games that anyone can do. There is virtually no skill or brains required for these "acting out" portions of the game.
My least favorite is Trivial Pursuit -- the questions are pretty hard, but not as hard as the "original" Trivial Pursuit game questions! For some reason, the guys always seem to do pretty well with these questions.
I'm undecided about the Name that Tune portion of the game. While the songs you're supposed to "hum" to the other player(s) on your team are typically popular 80's songs and other long-standing classics... it's next to impossible to get the "key" right. (For all of us non-singers, that is.)
Plus, sometimes it's easier to hum the background melody than the chorus itself, and since there's no words it's harder for your teammates to pick up on the tune. Anyhoo... our friends Neil & Abby never seem to have a problem with the Name That Tune portion of Cranium. They're "the designated hummers" every time we play the game together!
Oh, and I almost forgot about one interesting caveat to this game... one category of questions is called Sculptorades. It's where you use a hunk of Play Doh to "sculpt" the word that's on the card for your teammates to guess. It's easier than it sounds, but it does take a small bit of skill to be able to mold the clay into meaningful shapes well enough that others will be able to guess what you can so clearly see in your own mind!
A Game of Cranium... In Action
A Game of Cranium... In Action This past New Year's Eve, we went to Neil and Abby's and took Cranium with us.
The word was "blowfish"... act it out!
The word was "backbend"... and sculpt it!
The word was "paintball"... act it out!
[They never even got close to guessing that this was 'painting'... and this was 'a ball'... dribbling the ball... shooting the ball... Nothin'!]
Happy New Year, everybody!
Here's to another year of playing fun board games...
Next up, a card game of Euchre in action. Watch out Neil & Abby... it's ON now!
I found it interesting that these are the most-searched games on the Internet right now:
1. Scrabble
2. Deal or No Deal Game
3. Monopoly
4. Yahtzee
5. Risk
6. Boggle
7. Battleship
8. Trivial Pursuit
9. Connect Four
10. Cranium
11. Scene It
12. Settlers of Catan
13. Apples to Apples
14. Blokus
15. Candy Land
16. Mastermind
17. Scattergories
18. Othello Game
19. Littlest Pet Shop Game
20. Balderdash
Source: Yahoo Buzz
Hi,
I really enjoyed reading this - very timely too. I've recently set up a Wiki-website dedicated to offering information about games, gaming and "winning" strategies. We are looking for people with expert knowledge to help us boost the content of the site. Having read your postings I wondered if you would be able to help us. Please take a look at our site (still very much in its infancy), and if you would like to edit or add a section (even an extract from one of your blog-entries) we would be delighted. Of course, you are welcome to add links back to your blog. You can also create an "Author's" page with further links if you like.
Regards,
Harrison
www.win-ipedia.org
There's a great family board game you should do a write up on and its called Settlers of Catan. There are three editions that support 4 players and each edition has an expansion version (adding 2 more players). It can be expensive in stores but easily (and cheaply) found on eBay.
The wiki for it is at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlers_of_Catan