Idle Remorse

Review: Deception

By jen On June 9, 2018 With No Comments

Review: Deception
Publisher: E.S. Lowe
Year: 1975
Tagline: The Memory Poker Game

Cover showing face down memory tiles and pawns

how we met

I picked up Deception for a buck at a garage sale a couple weeks ago. Between the price, the oh-so-70’s cover and the photo of The Odd Couple (Jack Klugman and Tony Randall specifically) on the cover, I was sold. I don’t personally know anything about The Odd Couple and had to google to understand how it ties to poker. But I appreciate a cash grab whenever I see it, so it is a better cover for showing a TV show. And I fully intend to tag this post accordingly.

how it plays

The Memory Poker Game is a good description of how Deception plays. The cards are shuffled or otherwise mixed up while face down. Each player receives two cards face up that will go towards their best 5-card poker hand from a total of 7 cards. The remaining cards are placed face down on the spaces in the board, and the leftovers are set aside.

Overhead shot of the game board ready for play

Ready to play!

Players have five pawns in their color and a number of chips. Each player antes 5 chips to play. On their turn, each player may look at two of the cards on the board, without revealing them to other players, and must choose one of those cards to claim in their poker hand. They do this by placing one of their 5 pawns in the space next to the card.

Mid-play showing claimed cards

If you are interested in viewing one of the cards that was already claimed by another player then you must first pay that player 2 chips for the privilege. If two players claimed the card you must pay each of them. Only three players can claim any one card.

Once all 5 pawns from each player have been placed then betting starts, just as in regular poker. You can see, call, raise, fold, whatever.

Card shows rank of hands from high card to 5 of a kind

A cheat sheet reminds players of low to high poker hands

Once betting ends, each player still in the pot verbally reveals their hand (full house, four of a kind jack high, etc). The player with the highest claimed hand then reveals it by exposing the correct cards on the board, which will be a subset of the cards they claimed. If they are correct, they win! If they are incorrect, the next highest player may do the same until there is a winner.

how it went

I like poker so I thought I would enjoy this game. In our first hand, Bill was dealt two wild cards face up so we assumed he would win the hand. But it really does have to do with the luck of what cards you decide to look at. Since I am lazy I focused on the cards nearest me, and the two nearest me just so happened to be two aces.

Starting hand showing wild and 9 of hearts

My hand, starting with a wild card is never a bad thing

You have to claim one of the two cards you look at. Even if you know what a card is from looking previously and someone has claimed it since, you have to pay to look at it again in order to claim it. A few chips were changing hands as we played during those phases.

In the end John claimed a full house and each of the rest of us had four of a kind, but mine was aces! Thank you wild card! But I revealed one of the cards incorrectly (sigh), so it went to Keri next. She won that hand by accurately revealing four of a kind, kings!

Game board showing 3 cards marked by yellow flipped over showing kings

The big reveal

John had gone all-in with 19 chips during betting. I only had 10, so we had a side pot going. If I had won, our fun could have continued. But alas my memory is rubbish and when Keri won, no one had chips left. And we put Deception away.

play or pass

Pass. If you like both poker and memory games then this might be the perfect marriage of the two for you to enjoy. I like poker, but I am not a big fan of memory games. I would much prefer to just play poker and skip the setup, the pawns, the memorizing and smirking at that cute cover.

Review: Noteability

By jen On May 30, 2018 With 2 Comments

Review: Noteability
Publisher: Tiger Games
Year: 1990
Tagline: The name the song game

Noteability cover showing small piano

how we met

I found Noteability only days ago in a thrift shop near Milwaukee. We were running errands and buzzing around wasting time before meeting up with friends. I was attracted to Noteability by not recognizing it, by the cover and then by realizing it comes with a baby grand. I was sold.

I sometimes argue for my purchases. It’s fair; I have too many board games. But this was one of those cases. At one point Bill even placed Noteability on a high shelf to discourage my purchase. But in the end I paid my $1.99 and left with Noteability in my hands.

how it plays

In Noteability, individuals or teams must play songs on the provided mini grand piano for your fellow players. The player to your left can guess the song within two plays. If they are not successful, the other players may also guess. The player that successfully guesses receives four points and the successful musician receives two points. The first player to 50 points wins!

The keys of the baby grand are numbered, so knowing how to read music is not necessary. The song cards use a very simple approach to play: numbers with spaces should be played without pause, while the dashes between numbers should be treated as pauses. One dash is one pause, two dashes is two pauses, and so on. As someone that does not understand music in the least, it works. Really well.

My Way, an easy one!

200 cards, 3 songs per card

We played with enough house rules that I feel more comfortable putting them in the how it plays section than the how it went section. Here is what we did: 1) Based on the sage wisdom of those that came before us, we used the common house rule that if you don’t recognize a song on the card you may draw another and 2) We didn’t start this way but pretty quickly allowed any number of plays and 3) Anyone can guess. I highly recommend these house rules.

how it went

We played Noteability after the town beer fest. We were tired, grumpy, dehydrated, sunburnt and hungry. Some of us sober, some of us not. But we loved it. Well most of us. We loved it.

Myth: all games that come with a scorepad suck. BUSTED

The common complaint on BGG is that players do not recognize the songs. This was truly the reason I expected to hate the game. I anticipated hymnals and snapshots of another time. But the songs were actually pretty okay. Snapshots of another time, sure, but mostly very classic songs. I am going to go out on a limb and assume some of us rejected song cards due to the difficulty of playing them rather than not actually knowing them.

More song examples picked randomly from the deck

The piano is an old electronic keyboard. It is not very responsive, and the most difficult songs did not have to do with how recognizable they are but whether you can even create a shadow of them using the tools at your disposal. The fast songs proved the most difficult. And the most frustrating since the player was often very familiar with the tune and just couldn’t make the piano respond quickly enough.

It was interesting, too, to see which songs some of us knew but not others. For example, at one point John really thought he nailed it – and he probably did – but he was playing some song called Tiptoe Through the Tulips which I have never heard of in my life.

A snap from our play

Playing the songs is not easy. It can take focus, concentration, even practice. This is all very unforgiving in the original rules where you get only two plays. But playing the songs was actually pretty addictive. After Bill won most of us picked out some more songs and tried to play them.

I wish I had video of our play but alas I do not. But it was pretty much exactly like the commercial so you can reference that if curious.

play or pass

Play. I legitimately thought this game would be a quick pass through my household to warn all of you. Instead I think it may be years before we see how it has fully effected my buying habits. Not all games that look bad are bad! It’s a new world.

Review: Family Reunion the game

By jen On May 28, 2018 With 2 Comments

Review: Family Reunion the game
Publisher: USAopoly
Year: 2002
Tagline: Where every picture tells a story

Cover showing family photos and resembling a photobook

how we met

I found Family Reunion the game at the local thrift shop in my town, the scene of so many weird, obscure and wonderful game finds. It just so happens that I had family in town visiting and they were with me on this rummaging trip. I grabbed the game and looked it over – the cards were still in shrink but the board was missing – then put it back. Then a few minutes later my brother-in-law lifted a game board from another part of the shelves and unfolded it. I bet you can’t guess what it was.

I don’t typically ignore signs, least of all when it comes to buying games. I paid my $2.99 (yes, a lot!) and continued on with my day knowing that we had an entire night of board games ahead of us.

how it plays

The object of Family Reunion the game is to collect one photo card from each of the four categories: Traditions, Magic Moments, Happy Days and Hand Me Downs.

To begin play, one family secret is chosen randomly from the FAMILY SECRET deck and placed in the FAMILY SECRET envelope without being seen. The four photo decks are kept in their own piles and shuffled. The SNAPSHOTS deck is shuffled and set next to the board.

Each player also receives a YOU’RE NOT TELLING THE WHOLE STORY card.

From here it is roll and move where the space on the board indicates what happens next. You may land on a SNAPSHOTS space and the player next to you asks you a question from a SNAPSHOTS card. These are typically “how well do you know your fellow player” type of questions, like who gets the most sleep, who has traveled the most, what year was the shortest player born, etc.

Let’s get uncomfortable

Most of the spaces on the board correspond to one of the four photo card categories: Traditions, Magic Moments, Happy Days and Hand Me Downs.

Overhead shot of board with pawns in place

An image from our play

You draw from the deck of the category you land on and look at the photo. Really look at it. Then tell your fellow players a story or memory from your past triggered by the photo on the card.

After this touching moment of vulnerability, your fellow players can accuse you of not telling the whole story with their YOU’RE NOT TELLING THE WHOLE STORY card. They then fill in the missing pieces of the story. If they are generally believed then the accuser can steal a card from the original player. If not, the original player can steal from the heartless person who placed the accusation. Each player can only play their YOU’RE NOT TELLING THE WHOLE STORY card twice in a game.

If you are not accused in the first place then you keep the card. Remember you are trying to get one in each category. This will be largely based on the luck of your roll. There are two spaces that will allow you to choose from any of the categories.

Each of the four decks will also have SKELETON IN THE CLOSET cards. This really just requires you to tell a story that could be considered a skeleton in your closet, like an embarrassing moment, something you are not proud of, something highly personal, etc. The rest of the card is played out the same with accusations or not and card collection or not.

Cards showing a skeleton against a blue background

My friends and I used to write fake notes from our “sick mom” so the gas station attendant would sell us cigarettes. Now you go

The first player to collect each of the four category cards is the winner! They then are allowed to open the FAMILY SECRET envelope and force all the losing players to answer it. Celebratory confession time!

how it went

I think the idea of this game is to play it with your extended family to learn more about their past experiences and anecdotes – a noble goal. If the players are committed to play, then the game can be fun and interesting with new stories that you had not heard based on random prompts. Players can also be non-committal and not share. It all sounds very ungamely, doesn’t it? The Ungame was referenced more than once during our play.

For all of its lofty purpose, the game is fairly broken. Introducing an option to challenge players that they are being incomplete in their tale could mean anything. They are probably just a good storyteller and know that no one cares what exact month it was. But also, the accused can just say, “No you are wrong.” There is no real avenue for passing judgment, so that part of the game is broken. None of us used our stupid YOU’RE NOT TELLING THE WHOLE TRUTH cards. Good thing too, because there is no way to count their limited use of two times.

We got some good tales. Every so often players encountered cards that were very difficult to trigger our memories – they were just too far off. The instructions do a nice job of explaining all the ways you can look at a card to find memory prompts.

Example Happy Days cards including blonde woman holding a bucket and rag over concrete

Happy Days examples. I too remember washing concrete, and looking good doing it

Hand Me Downs example cards showing kids at school and in snow

Hand Me Downs was hands down the most boring of the categories

Example Traditions cards including one showing finger pointing at an Xray

Traditions. And no, I don’t know what’s going on in that X-ray photo. Just own it as a trigger

Magic Moments cards including one showing hands feeling a coin collection

Magic Moments cards. Hey buddy whatcha got there? Oh it’s the hair dryer! Good.

I can see the game being dangerous with certain company. For example the Magic Moments deck has a lot of wedding, marriage, birthday, having children and aging type of photos. That type of content can raise as many – or more – painful memories for people as happy ones. That is not to say they should not share. But a person that is typically positive will likely raise happy memories and anecdotes and a person that is typically negative will likely raise more unhappy memories. Be ready to navigate that in case it comes up. Fortunately it did not come up for our snarky crew.

My sister won our game and, per the FAMILY SECRET card, asked each of us to, “Share a little known story about your parents.” I shared a memory of getting caught smoking by my dad when I was in 5th grade, an anecdote more about me than my parents and one where my mom was not featured at all. But hey. I shared.

Example secret cards including one asking you to describe a time you skipped school

Example secrets. Joke’s on you, I skipped school at least once a week!

play or pass

Pass. Family Reunion the game by USAopoly is for ages 8 to grandparent. This game is not for you, it is for the family member that finds comfort in sharing their old memories at the drop of a hat. It can be fun, it can be revealing and interesting, it can even be a decent way to pass the time. But it is consistently ungamely.

Review: Cash Cab

By jen On May 17, 2018 With No Comments

Review: Cash Cab
Publisher: Imagination Games
Year: 2008
Tagline: The trivia game that puts you in the driver’s seat

Cab Cab cover showing host leaning against cab

how we met

I found Cash Cab on an otherwise unspecial day. I do not buy trivia games. I do not enjoy trivia games. If I can help it, I do not play trivia games.

Cash Cab is a trivia game. I never buy trivia games because I am awful at them. Bill was the one who found Cash Cab wherever we were. I knew that my sister was a big fan of the show. I picked it up, knowing that at worst I would pass the game onto her. Also it actually rhymes with “cash grab.” I thrift a lot and recognize that for the rarity it is.

how it plays

Cash Cab is based on a television game show of the same name. In this show, people throughout New York will enter a cab and start on their journey when suddenly lights and noises happen to indicate they are in the cash cab and can win money! The board game does a service to the show. Each player starts the game with $50 and a destination. On their turn, a player rolls the die and can move as many spots.

The island you will be cruising during play

On your turn, if you land on a destination that you are not focused on or a random yellow dot then you are asked three trivia questions. The questions are clearly labeled and asked in order from 1 to 3, if you make it that far. If you successfully answer the first question then you receive $50 cash. The second answer is worth another $100! And the third is worth $200! If you get a question incorrect then you get a STRIKE card with a big X on it and play moves to the next player.

X marks the losers

If you happen to get three strikes then you are left on the cold street, as you would be on the real show. You turn in your unbanked money and destination cards. You have nothing. On your next turn you draw a new $50 and destination card.

Some of the many destination cards

There are Stop Light spaces on the board that cause you to answer a RED LIGHT CHALLENGE question, found at the bottom of the trivia card. If the player answers correctly they gain $250. If they are incorrect, their turn ends but they do not collect a STRIKE card. So that’s nice.

When you reach your destination you can choose to “pocket” or bank the money you have so far, placing it in a special area that is untouchable, or you can bet it all for a double-or-nothing wager. If you do the latter, the player to your left gets to choose from amongst any of the three questions to ask you. If you win, you get double your money and it is banked. If you lose, you lose all unbanked money and your destination.

Example trivia cards, including one with a SHOUT OUT! If you get a SHOUT OUT question you automatically get that money and roll again.

The board game solves for a one-way taxi trip by giving each player multiple destinations. It works.

The first player to bank – not just win, but bank – $1,000 wins.

how it went

I was pleasantly surprised and found myself even, kind of, liking this trivia game. It drew on all of my hard-earned knowledge of hair metal, classic literature, Law & Order, cartoons, acronyms and, okay, common knowledge.

For a period we wondered why someone is given $50 every time they start a new leg of their journey. Then John showed us when he rolled something ridiculous like a 4 and moved from his previous destination to his next destination. It allows you to double something, bank something – even if only $50 – if you are so lucky.

I think we had a healthy balance of banking and pushing our luck. I myself did both. It is important to consider your risks and bank when it makes sense, or ride your random trivia knowledge when it makes sense. I am a gambler, as you know, and rode those instincts to victory.

Cash is sweet. Double cash is sweeter.

Only the next day Bill and I had breakfast at a new little diner in our town. Across the room the television was playing the Game Show Network, and, you guessed it, Cash Cab. It was like the universe was saying, “Hey remember that victory last night? That was awesome.”

play or pass

Play. I liked Cash Cab because it’s easy, I’ll admit it. But you can still lose. Just ask my friends.

Review: Super Spy

By jen On May 6, 2018 With 2 Comments

Review: Super Spy
Publisher: Milton Bradley
Year: 1971
Tagline: The Electric Alarm Game

Super Spy cover showing two spies

how we met

I picked up Super Spy just last month at the Chicago Toy Show. It was near the end of the day. The game had a post-it indicating that the seller was unsure if it was complete or whether it even worked – kind of a key factor in an electronic game. It looked in good shape, and Bill has a talent for bringing broken electronic games back to life, so I took the deal and bought it for about the price of finding it at thrift.

how it plays

Super Spy is a roll and move game that supports 2-4 players. Players are spies with the objective of retrieving secret documents and then exiting the building.

Picture of female spy pawn looking sultry

And it doesn’t hurt if you can look good doing so

For setup, you are encouraged to gently shake the game board while it is flat to reset the magic. Then each player receives an ASSIGNMENT card indicating which documents they need. Players roll the die and move the indicated number of spaces on their turn, with the goal of safely reaching the vault spaces in each of the four rooms and finding their required document. You can land on a vault space without exact count, which is nice. Landing on the vault space allows you to take the document you need from that room.

NOTE the rules emphasize this important point: you should not slide your pawn from space to space but instead pick it up and land on each space in turn.

Each pawn has a magnetic bottom, and certain spaces on the board will alarm when landed on. If this happens to you, draw from the ALARM deck and do as it indicates, which is generally return one of your documents (if you have any) to where you found it and move your pawn to a specific room on the space indicated by an X. It behooves all players to try and remember which spaces on the board are alarmed.

Example alarm cards

The game is meant to be different each play with alarms shifting location, and the aforementioned gentle shaking is meant to reset where alarms are based.

The exit must be hit by exact count. The first player to safely exit the building through the vault room with all of their documents wins!

The game board showing the entrance in the lower right area and exit in the upper right area

how it went

Super Spy closely resembled what it would probably be like if my game group attempted to covertly obtain secret documents and exit a building undetected. It was a shitshow.

Example assignments showing which documents are needed

There are four assignments for up to four players

To begin with, all pawns enter the game board from the same entrance area, with only three choices for your first space. If you have a bunch of noob spies like we are, they may roll a lot of 1’s and 2’s right out of the gate. So we were shoulder to shoulder in the entrance room for no less than three turns.

And oh the alarm. Let me see if I can describe the alarm sound. The game takes D batteries and uses every ounce of that power to screech at you. The alarm sounds almost like an old school bell meets a prank palm buzzer, or perhaps like an old telephone from the 60s or 70s. Where there was silence, there is now a loud, obnoxious alarm. This unpleasantness probably resembles an actual alarm fairly well and is a nice touch.

The alarm also adds tension to Super Spy that would not otherwise be there. You definitely want to avoid the alarmed spaces for the sake of your ears and any dogs in the room, to say nothing of your game.

The alarm teased us by defying predictability. In certain points of the game, it seemed to go off pretty haphazard. One time, and this is a true story, it went off just when John rolled the die. He was like, “I’m not sure what to do. I didn’t move.” This would probably only happen to John though, so take it with a grain of salt.

A dark shot of our play

Sometimes a spy whose turn it was would set off the alarm, or so you would assume since they were moving, and the alarm would only stop if you lifted someone who was safely resting on a space from their previous turn. Or a couple times it would only stop if we lifted the ALARM deck (not magnetic, almost weightless) off of the area above the batteries. So those are problems.

After all of this alarm-sounding, the game was quiet for a long time and we wondered if the batteries died or it broke. But after a period it awoke and it screeched and we lost documents and play continued normally.

Example documents for radio room, micro-film room, etc

The documents are categorized by room, as you see on the left

We were impressed that after all these years the game still worked and alarmed at us. But, in very fundamental ways, it didn’t work at all.

We all gained documents and lost documents throughout play. We all wondered if the game would ever end. Eventually we all had our documents and were racing for the finish – which must be hit by exact roll but leaves a lot of freedom for movement at the same time. It looked like Keri had it, but the last spot before the end was alarmed and she was shuffled off to a different room. Bill won on his next turn and we packed up the game.

For the first time ever John asked me, “Can we never play this game again?”

play or pass

Pass! I had a good time, but even I don’t want to play this again. The game was a nice idea and has a gimmick factor, but it is fundamentally flawed. If you are into novelty games and loud noises then this might be just the game for you.

It is worth noting that Super Spy comes with an extraordinary number of blank cards. We know, because they confused us at first. Perhaps you can create something glorious with those cards. I will never know.

Picture showing two roughly equal size decks, one being blank

One of these decks contains all cards needed for play. The other deck is completely blank on the other side

Review: Deception

Review: Noteability

Review: Family Reunion the game

Review: Cash Cab

Review: Super Spy

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Review: Deception

Review: Noteability

Review: Family Reunion the game

Review: Cash Cab

Review: Super Spy

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