Clearly a terrible child marked up my copy, and I apologize to you for that. I would never have done that as a child. BTW, if anyone finds an original copy of Memory that says “Fuck” on the inside cover please let us know. It might be Keri’s childhood copy.
how we met
I found Blockhead! on a less-than-memorable stop at a thrift shop. I was happy to find it, because I knew it was a dexterity game that I was interested to try. I feel like Blockhead! is a classic game that many people have played, but I never see it thrifting.
how it plays
True to its dexterity origins, Blockhead! is all about balancing blocks on top of other blocks without everything tumbling down around you.
An action shot from our early play
This version of Blockhead! comes with a flat piece of wood that is used as the base of your structure. The first player places the first block on the base – and it is the only block that is allowed to touch the base the rest of that round.
The next player adds another block to the structure, and this continues until the structure collapses. The first time a structure collapses on your turn you are a SQUARE. The next time you are a CHARACTER. The third time, you are out of the game!
Play continues and last person standing wins Blockhead!
The Blockhead! base, so inviting
There are a few additional rules around play that address potential shortcomings. If the structure collapses within the first three turns then you reset rather than have any penalty for any player. This can prevent players from intentionally causing the structure to go awry between their early turn and their next turn.
Players can only place blocks with one hand, and they can only touch their block. If only their block falls rather than more of the structure then they can try the placement again.
how it went
We played Blockhead! on an evening that I believe I already wrote about, where we played half a dozen games and had a lot of fun. As with a lot of games new to us, you can see how our strategy improves even within the single game play.
Our early structures were tall and glorious, while our later structures were short and not very attractive, but much more diabolical.
I am sure there is a reason rest stops choose this kind of sculpture, but we were just getting startedWe are starting to pick up on our natural Take That skills hereA wing and a prayer, and then it all came tumbling down. Probably on my turnThe shortest, the hardest to see, but the most diabolical of them all
At times we would attempt a placement that did not work out as intended, but sometimes it still worked out. The phrase, “Fuck it. That’s what I meant.” was used many, many times.
Blockhead! suffers from a common downer in vintage games, where the last-person-standing winning condition often means players are actually out of play and just sitting there watching the remainder of the play. I did not think Blockhead! went too terribly long for us, so it wasn’t a huge deal. But it is worth mentioning because that is always a bummer.
I was the first player out, followed by John. Bill and Keri went head to head, but Bill ultimately won Blockhead!
play or pass
I say play! Blockhead! is a classic dexterity game, and the shapes are interesting. You can find more (and less) sophisticated dexterity games nowadays, but going back to just weird-shaped wooden blocks holds up fine.
Review: Snapshot Publisher: Cadaco Year: 1989 Tagline: A VERY REVEALING GAME
how we met
I found Snapshot during a long thrifting day last summer. It was at a thrift shop that we have never returned to and probably never will because the contents of the shop are not very gamely. I don’t remember the exact amount I paid for Snapshot, only that it was less than $1.
I have said before that I am a sucker for vintage games with a bunch of pictures, and it rarely leads me astray. I was happy to pay 80 cents, or whatever, for Snapshot.
how it plays
Snapshot is super simple to play. One player is supposed to choose a photo at random, keeping it covered by a photo shield (that I am not even sure I have) and placing it into the game board, which is a plastic camera thing. Then you are ready for play!
This is the game board / camera with the doors closed
Snapshot comes with 16 chips that only show their numbers on one side. All chips should be placed face-down on the table and mixed together. The game board can be safely opened and will show you 16 tiny doors.
This is the camera opened up, and upside down since our stickers were placed incorrectly (see how it went section)
The first player chooses a face-down chip and opens the door corresponding to the number they drew. They have the option to guess what the photo is, or pass the game board to the next player.
This is an example of a partially revealed photo, what do you think it is?
If a player guesses the image, they can look at the rule book to determine whether they are correct. Each image has a number in a corner (a random corner, unfortunately) and the rules contain the answer for each image. If the player is correct, they move their peg one space forward on the scoring track! If they are not correct, they move their peg two spaces backward! (Unless they are on start and have nothing to lose. That was my jam.)
I don’t really remember noticing that there is no green peg, but looking at BGG photos my copy is not alone
The first player to 12 points wins Snapshot!
how it went
I know I say this a lot, but this game was better than I expected. Here are a few things particular to our play:
We placed an entire stack of photos into the camera game board at the beginning of play. This was simple because when someone won the point, they can close the game board which closes all the windows, pull the top card out, and be ready for play!
The troglodyte that placed the stickers on our used game board placed the number stickers upside down. This was mostly annoying because before we realized it and started playing with numbers upside down, if we lifted the game board the photos would slide out, and you would need to reset. You need to make sure you play so that the opening is at the top and not the bottom of the game board. It sounds obvious, but the stickers can lead you astray.
The very first chip that was drawn in our play was 7 and had a gob of something dark on the 7 sticker that was left to dry and fester there, presumably since 1989ish. None of the other chips ended up being that visibly disgusting, but it was quite a start out of the gate. For the remainder of the game, Keri would say, “Come on, soy 7!”
I chose not to show you Soy 7 too visibly. You’re welcome.
We had some difficulties as players guessed the answers, because the numbers were not uniformly in a single location so we had to really look in each corner. This is more annoying than anything. It doesn’t really hurt play, since if you are wrong you are out of play anyway. And I have no honest idea whether this was the happenstance of our copy or how the game was made. My money is on how the game was made.
You can see portions of the images through the cracks in the windows, and while this was convenient it does not give anything away or unbalance anything. We were all looking through those cracks, so we were still on an even playing field.
One of my concerns with Snapshot was the dated photos. I love dated photos and dated games, as you know, but when you are responsible for guessing their content it’s a whole other matter. But in playing the game, I was happy that all of the photos were relevant and we never got stuck on a guess. Not once.
It is worth noting that we never encountered the photo in the upper left. Any guesses at full exposure?
As I look through the 500 answers to the photos, there are very few that stick out as being entirely out of date. Most of the photos are very general, like girl going down slide, airplane, Golden Gate bridge, toothbrush, cello, and things like that. But there are a few that might cause younger folks trouble, if you want to take advantage of that somehow. Like pay telephone, china cabinet, books on bookshelves (I know, me too), or video camera.
The other obvious potential issue with Snapshot is that there is somewhat of an honor system as players name their guess and judge their own answer. This is mostly fine, but watch out for any of your tricky players and make sure that before looking, players give a single answer. JUST ONE ANSWER, BILL.
I say this with some bitterness because one time when I guessed clamp, the answer was vise. Fuck.
I don’t have a lot of concerns around the replayability of Snapshot. Even though the photos are there and may be seen, and the list of items is viewed by each player as they guess, there are 500 photos. If people don’t have perfect memories and are not intentionally looking through the list of images then 500 is a lot of photos.
The components are charming. The game is friendly to many ages, assuming the younger ones can handle the components and looking up their guess without issue. We had fun. Keri won Snapshot (although in my mobile Notes it actually says Keri won Snapchat that day, which is probably also true).
play or pass
I say play, but I say this under mild duress. My game group enjoyed this game more than I did. And when I asked whether to give it a play or pass (something I only do when I am struggling to decide) I got all resounding “play” responses, sometimes all in caps. I introduce my friends to a lot of miscellaneous (read: bad) vintage tabletop games, so I have to recognize that Snapshot is probably more fun than I personally thought it was.
I’ve seen Snapshot at thrift probably three or four times by now, so it’s not unheard of. If this kind of hidden image game appeals to you, then this one is cool. And there is no denying that camera is pretty sweet. Here’s to hoping your stickers were put on correctly!
I have such happy news about Panic Mode. I worked so hard for so long, and finally the game is actually printed and in my hands. It was on the ocean for awhile, then it was stuck at the port in LA for a bit, then it was on a train to Chicago where it enjoyed some downtime, then it got on a truck for its final journey to me. Like It Follows. Just always there, moving toward me.
This was amazing progress and I am thrilled with it. But I also want to talk about decisions and pressures that are suddenly unavoidable. And I want to share some of the hidden challenges with you, in case it is helpful or helps you prepare or gives you a giggle or anything.
Note: I hired a very talented artist and a couple of graphic designers when creating Panic Mode. The rest was just me. I am unlikely to represent the difficulties of the artists because I did not go through it.
Here’s the thing about making a game all by yourself: you are a designer, a publisher, a project manager, a marketer, a researcher. You need artistry, passion, resourcefulness, urgency, patience, sanity. On the worst days, each of these things represents a tiny fist that is punching you, all along the way. You are getting tiny, little challenges – not enough to give up but just enough to constantly feel unfit and over it.
The following examination is so strictly related to my Panic Mode! game (and my personality) as to be ridiculous. But when I was researching tabletop games and Kickstarter campaigns, I adored any highly transparent post that I found. This process was not easy, and my goal is to set an expectation for whoever may find this post, that there are three hundred little issues waiting to drown you the entire time. There are probably three hundred more in front of me!
But believe me: if I can do this, you can too.
Part 0: context for my perspective
I am not a game designer, I just made a game! I am not looking to change jobs or start a game design company. I was not testing the waters. I am invested in my game, but my worst case scenario is an anecdote and not my livelihood. This game is my contribution, and I don’t feel like I fit in this world. And this is the post of an outsider.
Part 1: game design
You need an idea. That’s the first step. If you have one, great! If you don’t, I always find constraints to be fuel for my creativity. What is something you love that no one else does, and how can you make a game out of it? What is a topic that needs more awareness and could help the world, and how can you make a game out of it?
So then you have to care enough to move forward. You made a thing and it might have been tested in a limited scene, and then what? Who will remember a week from now? You have to care enough, and cling to every single encouragement you get, to move forward.
OK so you decided to do this. Now how does this game work, exactly? And how does it not work, exactly? You need to settle any disagreements between mechanics and theme, maybe even introduce new ways of accomplishing a goal, new win conditions, stressors and relief, etc etc.
Designer Diaries are a great way to get into a designer’s head. Board Game Geek is full of them, as are many Kickstarter updates. You can start to back Kickstarter games you appreciate at $1 level (if they offer it) to get more insight into the process, even if you don’t plan to crowdfund.
Also logistics. If this is something I am planning to work on, what tool should I use? And why is it so hard? Surely there is something better. Surely there is something that will help me get a head start for sending to manufacturers or even prototyping.
The general rule of thumb here is to be brief and perfunctory during early playtesting. Use whatever you got and whatever works. Index cards, crayons, Excel, Word, whatever. Just be nimble.
But when you get further, use Photoshop or InDesign if you have those skills. Use Inkscape (it’s free and was more intuitive to my brain). Use Nandeck which I understand takes a bit to learn but saves you time in the end. I used Inkscape until I was forced into the Adobe suite, but that was in publishing.
OK got that down, now just have to create more content. Panic Mode involved a lot of writing, and I spent a lot of time writing more and more cards. My first prototype was an adorable 47 cards or so. I had more serious playtesting around 150, but eventually something in my dumb head decided 250 was where I needed to be.
You still have to care enough to finish. Limit your, “I will get to that later. No one is waiting for this. I will do it so soon.” Or is that just me?
You need help to edit. And to make the design sing and dance. Be ready to ‘kill your darlings,’ as most designers put it. And everything needs to be tracked in a game, or don’t even go there. At some point I had the amount of cards I intended but some were awesome, some were great, some were okay, and some were bad. I for sure needed to rewrite a lot of the stinkers. So I did card sorting but needed more than myself, the author. Pull in people around you.
OK but while I figure out what I am rewriting I need to determine how frequently wins happen. And I need to decide how much I care and whether I have a target. I need to figure out if the game is fun and resonates with people. And so do you. You need playtesting.
If you are still using early versions of your game be prepared to determine which feedback is truly about your game design and which can be addressed in a more graphic-designed version. And which to discard, because they just didn’t get it. And which you accept. And which you need to listen to and adjust.
I gave a lot of deference to theme in my game.
At this point my rules were…okay. But I needed to simplify them and fit them onto a limited space. And I hoped they made sense. But the real test for rules is blind playtesting.
Blind playtesting means someone plays your game without you or someone else familiar with the game there to explain any issues or rules. Just strangers and your game and rules as written. The game needs to stand on its own. It can be brutal, but it is critical. I hear video or audio can be helpful for designers in this step, though I didn’t do that myself.
I also needed someone to tell me when enough was enough, and to ship it. At some point you have to be done.
OK it’s really coming together! But it looks like shit! I needed an artist, so how do I find someone that can make these illustrations and help make my game come to life?
Only pay for art if you are going through with self-publishing, and consider this an investment of your own. Don’t factor this money into what you need to make back or it will skew your numbers. You seriously have to care a lot.
Also don’t offer an artist a percentage of your revenue for payment. That’s like asking for work up front with no pay, and it’s offensive. Art and graphic design is a service and you pay for it.
OK this looks so good. So now what?
Go ahead and throw it up on Board Game Geek. Common advice says to do this early, and it won’t hurt. If it feels too early, no biggie, just keep revisiting this item on the checklist so you get it done when you can.
Part 2: game funding
To begin with, you need to do your homework to figure out approximate cost. Once you have an established game (you already designed it by now, OR GO BACK TO START) then you can email manufacturers to get quotes. You can ask them to provide you with a rough weight for your game that you can then use to ask Fulfillment centers the cost of shipping. Freight costs across the ocean is more difficult, but there are websites that will provide a rough estimate based on your very rough weight estimates.
Speculation here, but all of the manufacturers I reached out to for quotes (a handful) asked me to tell them more about my game. I always got really responsive replies, and it’s probably because I provided a link to a print and play, and they knew I was a real prospective client. Make sure you do this step when you can provide real evidence like a print and play, photos of playtesting, a prototype, things like that.
Main costs are manufacturing + freight + shipping (if you have backers). I strongly encourage you to leave your own time and that of artists out of this equation.
Panic Mode was printed by Longpack and they were great. Their minimum order quantity (MOQ) was 1,000 as of that point in time, they were great to work with, wonderful experience. I traded emails early on with Panda, and they were lovely too. Their MOQ was high for me at 1,500.
I worked with Quartermaster Logistics to get a shipping quote prior to my Kickstarter campaign launch. This tells me approximately how much it will cost me to ship to backers from specific points in the globe. But there are still freight costs.
Note: even though I had <100 backers I still had a few comments and direct messages about the high cost of shipping. There is so much pressure to get your Kickstarter goal as low as possible as it is, and you likely have zero wiggle room for shipping. In fact I think one of the variables to take down the most successful campaigns is shipping, where they tried to bake it in and eventually couldn’t keep up. Be so confident in your estimates. You can’t control shipping.
I actually way over-estimated my freight costs based on dire warnings. I’m not sure there’s a great way to estimate this in advance. I paid way less than expected to get 1,000 units from Shanghai to my door step in rural Wisconsin with a gate lift. And it was not my cheapest option, but it was the easiest. I think my campaign goal was way higher than it should have been, because I was just guessing on a lot of it and trying to build shipping into it. I don’t recommend either of those things. I do recommend reaching out to a logistics company super early to see what swag estimates they can give you. Worst case, I think a common rule of thumb is assume $1.50 per game for freight.
To crowdfund or not to crowdfund, that is the question. I decided to Kickstart my game very early on. The most valuable part of this decision is that there is a wealth of information around crowdfunding preparation that is much harder to find if you decide to go it alone.
If you do decide to crowdfund, immediately start backing popular Kickstarter games even if just at their lowest tier. You will learn a lot
You can also decide not to fund, and just to sell your game design to a publisher. I don’t know anything about this myself, but people do it all the time. Game conventions have speed dating around this type of thing, publishers will let their followers know what they are looking for and how to apply, and other less standard approaches.
You can just make your game. Because, oh shit, my Panic Mode campaign failed so now what. I decided to just make my game anyway, something I could afford to do. This decision still took a lot of outside perspective before I was fully stubborn on it. I can’t overstate the importance my backers had on me, even in a failed campaign. Private messages from my campaign are probably the only reason the game exists today. I do not regret my crowdfunding attempt, poor though I was at it.
Crowdfunding blurs lines with publishing, since you are essentially self-publishing your game with crowdfunded money or handing it off to a publisher who isn’t reading this. So you need to follow the gotchas in the publishing category too.
Like, you need to market and make an audience! SO IMPORTANT!
Part 3: game publishing
It’s getting real now. The goal now is to get this thing out there, so how do we start?
What if someone steals my idea? Should I explore patents or trademarks?
I am no lawyer, and this is not legal advice. But game mechanics can’t be patented. The only games in my collection with patents are vintage and truly terrible. I got a trademark for my game, because at the time I didn’t know any better. I wouldn’t do it again. Make the best game you can, and the rest will work itself out.
There are endless examples of games with new or interesting ideas or mechanics that are not executed well. Then other games come along (or more often, they actually don’t) to do a better job, and we remember the better games. That is what you are up against.
I heard some people make a Print and Play and some don’t. Should I do that? What do I get out of it?
James Mathe has an article with his statistics [on offering a print and play], but they are what you might expect: almost no one is going to print your game and play it. They just want the reassurance that you have a real game by opening a PDF and finding…a game. That being said, I have a free PNP and one of my favorite things about it is that some folks actually did print it, play it, and tag me in it. And rated it on BGG. I have 250 cards in my main deck, and I love them for making this effort.
OK so the software decision feels more real now than in playtesting. Yeah, it does!
There is no magic answer that will fit your needs for prototyping, manufacturing, and playtesting. Stop looking for one.
You can go to websites for manufacturers like Longpack and Panda, and see their manufacturing and template requirements. This is the closest you can get to a head start on preparing your files.
At some point, if you are like me and know nothing about these programs, you need to get comfortable enough to work in them. In my experience, a kind friend was better than google for my questions because I didn’t know how to ask the right questions.
Panic Mode has 250 cards that may or may not tie to different roles with different icons and various lines of text. My artist, Rose Hammer, was extremely clever and set me up with a template to choose these things. She set me up for success as an Adobe neophyte. She is half saint.
But even then, she set them up using a Panda template because at the time that seemed most likely to me. I had to ultimately transfer each file to Longpack standards. That’s just how it is. You can’t know what you don’t know.
Now that I decided to be the publisher, I need to get ready to sell this thing. So what is marketing, exactly?
Yes, you need to be in social media and collecting emails and preparing for a game launch. And you need to apply logic to every approach you take. For example, if your audience is not in all the usual spots then you should not spend your time there. If your game does not contain unicorns and your game box does not have fur on it then you might not go viral. Just remind yourself, you already made that decision.
But followers don’t equal backers. You are just signing up for eyeballs, really. Be earnest and stick out in the crowd. And don’t follow people just to unfollow them, that’s gross.
Lean into your audience. This is one thing that I think I did okay, but it didn’t work out for crowdfunding. I had a lot of very interesting things happen when my campaign failed, and there might be interesting paths in front of you like there were for me. Paths that aren’t in all the blogs and groups and were unique. Just ride the waves.
I decided to print overseas and need to get these games shipped to me. I need to know my freight options.
Yes this goes back to doing your research, but there are a wide variety of companies that coordinate this level of logistics for you. As mentioned above, get the best info you can from the actual logistics companies.
I need to decide on a MSRP
The rule of thumb is landed cost (the cost to get a single game printed plus at your doorstep) x4 or sometimes x5. This is highly oversimplified but a good rule of thumb.
Compare your game to similar games in the market to get an idea of what is fair or normal right now.
Remember that if you go into retail then retailers will expect to pay about 50% of your MSRP (usually with free shipping) and sell at your full MSRP. (They have terrible margins too.) If you go into distribution then this discount might be even more! Distribution means volume which means cheaper manufacturing but until you hit that sweet spot, yikes!
Me personally, I struggled so much with this decision. My most interested audience was not from the gamer world but from professionals and industry experts related to Disaster Recovery. Even just people in IT that wanted their teams to try it. I got a ton of great pricing advice, but I was never comfortable leaving behind one audience for the other. So I settled somewhere on the higher end of the gamer group. I’m not sure how that will go, but I am fiercely comfortable with it.
Part 4: fulfillment
Usually fulfillment means providing copies to backers. There’s a lot of companies that offer fulfillment services, and lots of great info. The gist is that you need to have companies in various parts of the world to accomplish it when you have a known audience, as that will be most cost-efficient. There’s short- and long-term fulfillment companies.
Part 5: just plain accepting and fulfilling orders
You need a store. You should have a website to take your orders, or lean into only utilizing Amazon or some other alternative.
One of my challenges has been, and continues to be, non-US shipping. I asked around a bit and did a lot of googling and the gist was that it’s not pretty. There’s no trails blazed that make the most sense, it all just kind of sucks unless you hit a critical mass to utilize better resources.
If you are not crowdfunding and do not have backers then you just need to get items to the people that buy them. There are lots of shipping options based on the dimensions and weight of your product.
Marketing does not end with trying to fund your product. It’s important to hustle to make sales once you have product in hand.
Part 6: real talk
This is a saturated market. You may have heard about the tabletop Renaissance, and you may have also slowly walked the Target board game selection and noted the number of products that directly have to do with defecation. Can you be part of one without being part of the other? Yes, and that is in your control. Unless you want to be part of both, in which case more power to you! Just own it, whatever it is you want to do. But it’s hard, either way.
It’s cold out there. I was just making a game. If you don’t have time to be super-invested in the tabletop community then they will not be super invested in you. And that’s okay.
You will not make a lot of money. Maybe not any. The total cost for my game was around $8,000-$8,500, not including art. I need to sell around 240 games at full price to break even. Another 240-250 I could decide to do another printing if I wanted. The rest is the gravy, not much! If I factored in my own time, well, why would I do that? Few people can write that kind of horror.
In conclusion
I think there are three major items that come up throughout the entire process.
Do I care enough? You have to constantly dig for the passion to go up that hill. Every step of the way, do you care enough to keep going? Just do it.
Ship it. This is a phrase that reverberates in my head for good reason: my best friends would constantly say, “Just ship it.” Or, “Ship it!” Or, “Just go, launch! You’re ready, be done!” This was necessary for me personally since I was doing a campaign, but it is something that has come up for me ever since too. All of the above steps need to end at some point. Why don’t you just ship it? Ask this all along the way.
Be confident. I wrestled with a thousand decisions throughout this process, and a few I might change but most I would not. Make a decision and be fiercely confident in it. Fake it til you make it.
And also if I can help to support you, be a sounding board, just say hi, or anything else just reach out. If you read this far, it was probably for a reason. You can do this!
Review: 10-Four, Good Buddy Publisher: Parker Brothers Year: 1976 Tagline: CB Radio Game
how we met
This one has been on the shelves for awhile and the story of finding it has already been told back with Barnabas Collins Dark Shadows Game. Like many of the games I got that day, the box looks like it has been dug out of the ground, but the inside is in great shape. It is only missing the Bear in the Air, which we replaced with a handy pom pom.
“Why did Keri have a pom pom laying around?” you may be wondering. She was the architect of our beautiful Casino Yahtzee crown, signed and dated and worn each time someone wins Casino Yahtzee. I’ll share a photo of the crown once we get it filled out a little bit more.
how it plays
10-Four, Good Buddy is a spin and move game where your object is to be the first truck to make your way around the entire board and back to your starting space.
On their turn, players will draw and read a MIKE CARD out loud. The card will inform them what they are allowed to do on their turn and which spinner they can spin to move, hi band (2 to 12) or low band (1 to 6).
The top MIKE CARD is upside down but this is otherwise a decent photo of the “CB Rig”
Many of the MIKE CARDs allow a player to move either “Smokey or Bear In The Air” after they move their pawn. This refers to either of the two police vehicles, SMOKEY, or the helicopter, the BEAR IN THE AIR. And this is where the Take That mechanic comes into play in 10-Four, Good Buddy.
The BEAR IN THE AIR has four possible locations where it is surveilling a stretch of road based on its color. If a pawn starts their turn on the color where the BEAR IN THE AIR is and the player’s total movement including their spin plus anything from the MIKE CARD exceeds 7 then they have been caught speeding and may not move that turn.
The long and winding road
The SMOKEY police cars have two different types of movement. At the beginning of the game, a player that is allowed to move a SMOKEY can move one behind any billboard on the board. The billboards are BEAR TRAPs and have 3 corresponding spaces on the road. If a truck lands on one of these spaces while a SMOKEY is behind the billboard, they are caught speeding!
Once SMOKEY police cars have been moved out of their initial starting spaces, they have a new type of movement. They move ten spaces around the board. They may only move less than ten spaces if they are pulling into a BEAR TRAP. If a SMOKEY ends its movement directly on, directly in front of, or directly behind a pawn then that truck has been caught speeding!
A truck whose movement lands them directly on, directly in front of, or directly behind a SMOKEY is also caught speeding!
When a truck is caught speeding by a SMOKEY, the truck is moved to the side of the road and the player loses their next turn.
The trucks and police on top of the slang cheat sheet. Each truck has a different sticker with a different name
There are two sections of the road that are tight corners called HAMMER UP. If a truck begins their turn on a space that says HAMMER UP then they do not draw a MIKE CARD and instead spin the lo band for movement.
The first truck to get back to their start space wins!
how it went
I have inflicted a number of educational board games on the group, and I am going to go ahead and qualify 10-Four, Good Buddy as educational even though BGG has not. I am not sure we have learned more while playing a game. We continue to use much of the slang from our play.
You see, 10-Four, Good Buddy comes with an insert that is crammed full of CB radio slang to help you decipher the cards if you choose to (and we did). Here is a short sampling of this slang:
Piggy Bank: toll booth
Tijuana Taxi: police car with lights turned on
Smokey grazing in the grass: police parked on the median divider
One hundred mile coffee: very strong coffee
Double nickeling: going 55 mph
Honey all over the pavement: lots of police on the road
I think Bill did the best job at reading the cards in a funny voice. But the slang definitely made reading the cards a lot of fun. We did not make it through all of the MIKE CARDs but we very nearly did.
A mere sampling of the WTF you are in store for
The trip around the board looks quite long initially, but play goes pretty quickly even when you get caught speeding a lot. The spins often get bonuses from the MIKE CARDs adding a few movement onto whatever you spin. This is tricky if you are being watched by a BEAR IN THE AIR (or, as I kept forgetfully calling it, the eye in the sky), but some turns you can really make a run for it.
I was the Green Ghost. Pretty right?
Keri was the first to pull her truck into home and won 10-Four, Good Buddy!
All in all, as a race around the board this is an okay game. The Take That is not too strong but is still there and sometimes threatening. The components are adorable and on theme. The funny slang makes the movement more fun and interesting, and educational, than it otherwise would be. But I don’t see much of any replayability here.
play or pass
Pass. It is fun for a one and done, and we did learn a lot of slang that we continue to use, but there are not enough cards to make me a believer in the replayability. It’s just a spin and move race with a new vocabulary. So that’s a pass. 10-10 til we do it again.
Review: Figure It Out Publisher: Cardinal Year: 1998 Tagline: The Game
how we met
I found Figure It Out at the same stop where I picked up Scavenger Hunt, so you can read more details there if you like. The gist is that it was a stop I’d never made before, and one that paid off because people with my interests in games don’t seem to visit that shop often.
I had never seen (frankly, had never heard of) Figure It Out as a show, but I know old Nickelodeon games can fetch a couple of bucks in resale and are likely to meet my expectations in levels of cheesiness.
how it plays
If you are familiar with the television show Figure It Out, then you will be familiar with how the game plays as it is exactly the same. For those unfamiliar, here’s how it works.
One player acts as the contestant and draws an ANSWER CARD, which will include four things on it: first, the answer which is the contestant’s talent or skill that the other players are trying to guess, second, clues about the answer that can be read at different times during play, third, a secret slime action, and finally a consequence if a player does the secret slime action.
Sample ANSWER CARD showing a real talent, if a creepy one
The contestant should set up the BILLY THE ANSWER HEAD so that other players know how many words they are guessing. The instructions also say to write in any of the words in parentheses. I looked through the ANSWER CARDs and there are no words in parentheses, so use your best judgment here. I think the spirit of the rule is to add words like “to” or “with” or “of.”
BILLY THE ANSWER HEAD from our play. You can see I just added parentheses where words should be, indicating the last space is blank
The goal is for the players to guess what is on the ANSWER CARD of the contestant.
The game is played in 3 rounds: Round 1: Start the timer. Players take turns asking “yes” or “no” questions to try and deduce the statement. If a player gets a “yes” answer they may continue with their questions until they get a “no” answer. If someone guesses a word from the ANSWER CARD, stop the timer and write the word in the correct space on BILLY THE ANSWER HEAD. If players do not get the correct answer in Round 1, the contestant gets to draw a prize from the 1st Round Prize cards!
Round 2: The contestant reads the first clue. Then play continues just as it did in Round 1, except the contestant gets to draw a prize from the 2nd Round Prize cards if their answer is not guessed!
Round 3: The contestant reads the second clue. Then play continues as above. If players still are not able to guess the right answer, they get one last chance in a charade round. Start the timer and act out the final clue. All players may guess the answer. If time runs out without the correct answer, the contestant gets to draw from the grand prize deck!
So ultimately you run the timer four times before calling it, and that is roughly four minutes.
The timer, totally on brand
If at any point a player does the secret slime action, stop the timer and explain the consequences that they must follow.
Then the next player gets to be the contestant and repeat the rounds. Then the next player! Then the next player! And everyone wins!
how it went
I watched an episode of Figure It Out on youtube as part of my relentless research on your behalf. The show is just like the gameplay described above, except at the end of each contestant’s turn (all the rounds) they get an opportunity to show off their special skill. This is generally awkward, both because kids are awkward and because the game sometimes showcases things that aren’t really skills.
In the show, if one of the panelists (which generally consist of known stars from other Nickelodeon properties) does the secret slime action then they get slimed.
One of the things I found funny in the episode I watched was that the Round 1 prizes mostly consisted of pieces of the set from other Nickelodeon shows. One boy won a piece from the original Legends of the Hidden Temple set, and a girl won a speed bump from Global GUTS. At least in the board game the kids can win useful things like a backpack or a basketball in Round 1.
Sample prize cards, and none of them were used in the set of a Nickelodeon show (I don’t think)
We played Figure It Out one evening with a host of other games. We were not able to successfully guess the talent in any of our rounds, probably because of an unfamiliarity with the show. We were not prepared to think as quickly as you need to. The timer is just one minute, so you really need to be ready with a host of “yes” or “no” questions to be able to make progress.
This one wouldn’t have even worked on the show! Or it would have worked too well because no one wants to mention the Texas-shaped mole on the kid’s noseThe hero we all needI’m calling bullshit on this one
Our game group is all about the same age, and we are all a bit too old to have seen Figure It Out, which probably dampened appreciation for the board game. However, I am not sure that replayability is great on this game regardless. The ANSWER CARDs are double-sided, so that will increase how many are seen and essentially ruin them for gameplay. And the humor of the cards just isn’t my thing. I like absurd humor, but these are just dumb.
play or pass
Pass. Figure It Out pretty much requires you to be familiar with the television show in order to play the game well and appreciate it. If you take strictly what is in the box without this prior knowledge, the game is playable but silly. But not like good silly fun. More like, this is silly and I don’t want it anymore.
