Review: Pick-Up Lines
Publisher: Pressman
Year: 2005
Tagline: The game that brings out the daring in everyone!
how we met
Buying this game for a couple of dollars was a no brainer for me. I love party games, I love pick-up lines and I love cocktails. Bonus: it was unpunched, perhaps unplayed.
how it plays
Pick-Up Lines takes a familiar party game angle where one player is the judge, and that role rotates from player to player as the rounds continue. In this game, each player has a plastic olive and martini glass in front of them. A cocktail shaker is in the middle of the table.
On their turn, the judge draws a card and chooses one of the pick-up lines to read out loud. Players then write their best responses on the provided red papers, roll the papers up into a tube, stick the paper into their olive (now resembling a pimento olive) and place it into the cocktail shaker.
A failed action shot of pouring the olive into the cocktail shaker
When all players have contributed their clever olives, the judge shakes the cocktail shaker and pours a random olive to each player. Then each player in turn opens their olive and reads the response. The judge chooses their favorite, awarding the author of the response two kiss tokens and the reader one kiss token.
A close up of the kiss tokens
The first player to collect ten kiss tokens wins!
how it went
When I looked at the back of the box and saw the novelty of the olives, cocktail shaker and martini glasses I was sold. But I’m also practical. I assumed we would use these things for one to three turns before abandoning them to a more sensible approach. But we used those items the entire time! We rolled up those papers and stuck them into the olives each time, we shook the shaker each time, we poured the shaker into the glasses each time. And it wasn’t annoying!
My martini glass with a couple of points and an olive waiting to be read
I enjoyed Pick-Up Lines. It can be a bit challenging, though. When you are trying to be funny on cue and focus on puns, it can be difficult to pull a great answer out of your hat. Because of this we sometimes fell back on inside jokes.
Example pick-up lines. Don’t ask me why they used multiple fonts
Here are a couple of the answers I recall so you know how lame and depraved we can be:
If you were a dog, what breed of dog would you be?
A shih-tzyou are looking fine today.
If you were a spice, what kind of spice would you be?
Ballsil
play or pass
Play. I don’t think this game is for everyone, but I love the novelty junk that comes with it and the challenge of responding to pick-up lines. I never had so much fun hitting on my friends.
FUN FACT: The most ridiculous pick-up line that I have ever received in real-life was from a gentleman at a bar who asked, “Are you a stripper or you just could be?” What are your favorite pick-up lines that you have used or received?