Idle Remorse

Review: moods

By On February 28, 2021 With 2 Comments

Review: moods
Publisher: Hasbro
Year: 2000
Players: 3 to 8
Tagline: it’s all in the way you say it game.

Speech bubble that says moods
The copy I found was unpunched but very, very sun damaged. It should be the bright green you see near the middle

how we met

I found moods at one of my normal haunts. Moods is one of those interesting thrift finds where the cover screams generic party game, but yet I have not seen it before. So what is it? Moods, what are you?

I picked it up and was holding onto it until I could look it up. If I am holding a game at thrift Bill often asks me if I have looked it up yet. The funny thing is, I only look them up on BGG and check out feedback. But he means eBay. Every time.

Both of our lookups netted enough interest to spend the couple of bucks and play moods.

how it plays

The object in moods is to be the first player to the Finish space. You get to move your pawn, called your Mood Stone, by correctly guessing the mood in which your fellow players say certain phrases.

To begin a round, take moods from the Mood Deck and place them face up along the board in the numbered spaces provided. Then the first player puts the 10-sided die into the cup and puts the cup upside down. Then they can peek at the die without showing any other players. The number on the die corresponds to the mood they must be this round.

Next this same player draws a card from the Phrase Deck. Read the phrase in the mood you were assigned by the die.

Image of the components
The components. My copy was unpunched so any game pieces over four players are still bagged.

Next the other players bid on which mood the active player is by using their Voting Chips. Each player gets four voting chips numbered 1 through 4. You can only use one chip each round, so use a higher number if you feel very confident and a lower number if you are not. Ideally the active player should call for votes so that everyone votes at once and no one can change their vote to go with the group.

Once everyone has voted, the player reveals the correct mood. If players voted correctly they get to move their Mood Stone the number of spaces indicated by their Voting Chip. If players voted incorrectly they just stay put. The active player gets to move one space for each player (not Voting Chip level, but each Voting Chip itself) that correctly guessed the mood.

So why wouldn’t you vote your 4 chip every time if there is no penalty for guessing incorrectly? Because Voting Chips are set aside until you use each one over four different rounds, and then you get them all back again. Don’t waste that 4 chip!

Example moods include fussy, wishy-washy, confused, depressed, dazed, threatening
A random draw from the Mood Deck, and an example of how some moods are similar
Example phrases include "I will return" and "All things being equal you lose"
Some of the phrases picked at random

The final part of the round is to replace every Mood Card that had any vote on it with a new Mood Card. Then the next player starts over with a new die roll. The first player to the Finish space wins moods!

how it went

Our game group played moods back in November of 2019 (omigosh!) so we played with 4 people, but I think this game would scale nicely to 8 to maximize party game fun. But we had plenty of fun, although this game is not without its challenges.

Overhead of the board
Here is a look at our play, all lined up nicely in a row

Challenge #1: After rolling the die, you have to be able to see the mood without giving away which number / mood you are looking for. This is by no means an insurmountable challenge, but it’s worth mentioning as I think this challenge becomes amplified in the casual atmosphere of a party game. This is not a bluffing game, but it requires bluffing skills just to determine which mood you are supposed to do if someone is looking at you. There must be a better way.

Challenge #2: Moods has all the inherent challenges of any performative game. Generally you want to be a caricature to get the mood across, but overdoing it might make the voting too simple? And subtlety could ruin everything. So you want to hit that sweet spot. Plus some members of your game group might just plain not enjoy this type of game, at least on their turn.

Challenge #3: Kind of opposite of the above, some of the mood cards are maybe too similar which makes the vote a crapshoot. When I pulled a few cards at random to take example photos I got both Dazed and Confused. I can think of ways I would try to differentiate them in my speaking but I’m not sure the difference would be clear. Not the end of the world, but less gamely.

Four pawns crowded on three spaces
This is approaching halfway through our game and we are fairly equal. Note: the Mood Stones are not always easy to differentiate in some lighting, but they are usually much better than this photo suggests

But honestly I am working pretty hard to bring up challenging nuances about what is just a plain, fun party game. The game doesn’t take itself too seriously, and if the players do not either then fun is sure to be had. And I had fun too, right up until Keri won moods!

FUN FACT: I hate playing the game Utter Nonsense passionately. I enjoy watching people play, but my own gift of accents is somehow worse than no talent. I have a talent for doing very poorly which is very hilarious to some people in my life. The general dynamic in my household is that I am always trying to get games into the house while Bill is always trying to get games out of the house. But every time I try to donate Utter Nonsense, it makes its way back onto the shelves quietly and ominously.

play or pass

Play. We are party game people, and you can’t go wrong with this type of simple, ridiculous gameplay. Good group fun. Knowledge of moods a must.

Review: Spy Web

By On February 21, 2021 With No Comments

Review: Spy Web
Publisher: Parker Brothers
Year: 1997
Players: 2
Tagline: THE GAME OF EAVESDROPPING, FINGER-POINTING & SPYING!

Giant letters say Spy Web with spies looking down over it

how we met

I picked up Spy Web at thrift a couple of years ago because of the fun cover (could the title be any larger????) and the fact that it’s two players. If you have read this blog before, then you probably already know I like deduction games. At least I like buying them.

how it plays

In Spy Web, you control one ring of spies and your opponent controls the other. Your goal is to try and deduce who your opponent’s Spy Leader is and where they are hiding before they get yours figured out. Rinse and repeat as many rounds as it takes for one player to collect $1,000,000 for the win!

To begin each player picks one of the plastic spy boards, one of the maps, their group of spies and the opponent’s group of suspects. The different groups are differentiated by color as well as type: the purple cards are all birds while the green cards are all sea creatures. You should have the spies from one and the suspects from another.

Shuffle your spy deck and choose one at random to be placed in the Spy Leader location on the top of your board. Next you will want to choose the location that your Spy Leader is in and indicate that by placing one of your pegs into the little black 3×3 quadrant. Finally, place all of your remaining spies onto the plastic board in any locations except the one the Spy Leader is in; that space must remain empty.

The plastic piece and map
When you are ready for play, your set up should look like this, with the suspects near your map. My Spy Leader is in the upper left corner and Rio de Janeiro being empty indicates that’s where he is. The peg next to the Spy Leader also indicates that, but I think that step is just to avoid cheaters.

Players now take turns either asking a question or making an accusation. You will notice your suspects are doing one or more of the following: looking, listening and pointing. You can ask a question like, “What is Buzzard pointing to?” The other player can only respond with the name of a vehicle (if that spy is next to one of the three vehicles on the board), the name of a spy or nothing. In the image above, Buzzard is pointing to an airplane.

Any question asked about your Spy Leader would result in an answer of “Nothing.” If someone is pointing to, listening to or looking at the location that your Spy Leader is in the answer is also “Nothing.” This will be simple to track since that location is empty on your board, like Rio de Janeiro in photo above.

The 3x3 grid map
This is a better image of the map showing how some outside spaces are next to nothing, while some are next to a vehicle like a boat. If a suspect pointing to the right is in Melbourne they are pointing to a boat. If they are in Hong Kong or Moscow they are pointing to nothing.

As you proceed you will start to deduce where your opponent’s spies are located with the ultimate goal of making an accusation that includes the name and location of their Spy Leader. Wrong accusations do not matter, you just used up your turn to make one. If someone correctly accuses, the opponent should swing their Spy Leader around to show the amount of bounty the other player receives.

Here I am trying to figure out where Bill’s terrible spies are located based on how he answers my questions

You can spend your money throughout the game by bribing your opponent to indicate which direction to answer for a suspect pointing two different directions (this seems extremely expensive to me and I can’t imagine doing it since there is only one suspect pointing two directions) or to take another turn.

Since the first player to $1,000,000 wins, several rounds will be played. Players are given $100,000 at the beginning of the game and the beginning of each round.

The 100,000 dollar bill
Here is a money shot for you

how it went

Bill and I played Spy Web one quiet Saturday afternoon after a pretty long period of not gaming. Quarantine has felt busy. I do okay with deduction games, but I am a terrible bluffer. You don’t exactly bluff in this game but a poker face is still helpful if you are getting asked about your Spy Leader.

I felt pretty good about my side of the board being very hidden. You can move around enough that I don’t think the other player can easily tell which location you leave empty, where your peg goes, etc. We hooded our eyes when answering questions for added security.

The spies have a nice balance with their abilities so that the game is not overly simple or complex.

Example spies
There are 9 spies in each group and this should give you an idea of their pointing, looking, and listening directions as well as their varied bounty amounts. HINT: Eel is a good one to put on the bottom row since his answer there will always be nothing even if not your Spy Leader. Your opponent will need to use another spy to place him.

We played maybe four or five rounds. I spent the first couple of rounds being pretty random with my placement of spies. Then I spent a couple of rounds being deliberate about where I put specific spies (after randomly choosing Spy Leader, of course) to try and add confusion. The latter approach seemed to make a big difference. Either way, you have to do the deduction work and not make assumptions to narrow everything down into guessable territory. But if you are careful in setting up your spies you can prolong your opponent’s ability to deduce your details.

The suspect cards are just like the spy cards except less colorful

Bill easily won the first couple of rounds. He also had the bad luck of getting some low-bounty Spy Leaders from me. I won the next rounds with decent returns and I won Spy Web!

There’s always types of games that a person may not enjoy. Bill explained after we played that he does not enjoy that type of deduction game. He understands how to accomplish the goal, but it feels like tedious work to him. I, on the other hand, love this type of deduction game. It reminds me a little bit of a Zebra puzzle.

One of my all-time favorite, best-ever, loved-it-the-most iPad games was called Riddle of the Century (previously called Einstein’s Riddle of the Century). Don’t bother looking for it; it’s been off the app store for years now. But I happily spent hours and hours and hours getting gold stars on every single puzzle. I love these all-consuming logic games. I have done many a Nonogram in quarantine. I think it’s logical (ha! get it?) that my leaning toward these games also makes me appreciate Spy Web. And I can understand why some people would not appreciate it.

Screenshot from Riddle of the Century showing icon images that you are trying to solve for
I grabbed this screenshot courtesy of Riddle of the Century’s Facebook page so I can always remember this amazing game and what I used to see when I closed my eyes at night. The images on the right and the bottom are clues to solve the main picture area. The first clue in the bottom tells me the purple hat person is above the cow, so she can be filled in and this hint can be closed! The first clue in the right hand section tells me that the strawberry is next to the train sign. Right or left, but directly next to. Not enough info on that one yet.

play or pass

Play. Spy Web is a fun game in a genre that I have a particular weakness for. Gameplay is simple enough, but be careful! If you are not vigilant you can get confused and end up with suspects in the wrong locations on your map. The difficulty goes up if you plan your spy locations well. For a more casual game just randomly place your spies.

I have not thrifted in a year now (ahhh!) but I have seen Spy Web three times in total. So it’s out there at thrift if you are patient. And if you are not patient, treat yourself to one of the bazillion copies online.

Review: The Mystery Zodiac Game

By On November 11, 2020 With No Comments

Review: The Mystery Zodiac Game
Publisher: Remco
Year: 1969
Players: 2 to 4
Tagline: LET THE STARS & PLANETS TELL WHAT’S IN THE CARDS FOR YOU!

A family of three look at the fortune wheel

how we met

Last year someone posted The Mystery Zodiac Game online in a vintage toy page. Bill immediately asked me if I was interested in it and managed to buy it before it was up online anywhere. The game looked really interesting and fun, and I couldn’t find any information about it anywhere.

The person that found The Mystery Zodiac Game and sold it to Bill is very nice and has a ton of interesting stuff for sale at any given time. If you enjoy vintage toys or games check out the starwarsdan Etsy shop.

how it plays

The Mystery Zodiac Game supports 2-4 players. In order to play, separate the cards face down into four piles based on their suit – hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs. Each player chooses one random card from each suit pile without looking at the back of the cards! The player with the zodiac sign that falls earliest in a given year gets to go first.

The card decks split out by suit
The suits show numbers as well, to help you keep your fortune in order

Before starting play each player chooses a fortune tablet. The suit on that tablet becomes that player’s suit for the game. These tablets resemble small, dark magnets, or like the snake fireworks you can set on fire each July here in the US and then enjoy the marks they leave on your sidewalk year round!

Small magnets with stickers showing the suits diamond, heart, club, spade
My table is nothing to look at, but these tablets would not go nearer to each other

The first player moves the white arrow on the constellation disk to their sign and then just holds tight while the other players take turns, starting with the player to the left. Each player in turn should place their fortune tablet on one of the available white spaces on the middle constellation disc. You can place your fortune tablet anywhere within the white space since the placement might help drive the magic of where the wand finally lands.

The wizard looking kind of sad
Most of my photos focus on the board and not the unhappy wizard holding the mystic wand.

The first player can then place their fortune tablet in one (or the, if it’s four players) remaining space. Then they hold the mystic wand to the side, spin the turntable, and release the mystic wand to land where it will. This can take awhile, but it is telling the future so a little patience is in order.

Eventually the mystic wand will favor one of the fortune tablets, and the player whose turn it was must follow the instructions for that suit on the board game. For example, if the wand selects the fortune tablet with a heart suit and the pointer at the base of the tower lands on “EXCHANGE with person to the RIGHT” then the active player trades their heart suited card with the player to their right. So the wand chooses the suit and the pointer chooses the action.

A shot of the wheel showing different possible options
This is the Zodiac wheel from above, showing the white spaces where Fortune Tablets go and the outer edges that define what happens to cards

Play continues in this way until each player has had four full turns! Divination is not a quick thing, my friends. At the end of four rounds each player turns their cards over in the 1, 2, 3, 4 order they should be in and reads their fortune. So everyone wins!

how it went

I was not only excited to receive this old Remco game, but I was excited to share the game with a world that seems to have forgotten about it. I do not often pick up a game that does not exist on BGG. When I do, it enters a series of flowcharts in my head. Should the world know about this game? Do I care enough to enter it and submit photos? What is my goal here?

The game laid out on the table
Maybe if I put it all out there, my direction will be clear

I thought The Mystery Zodiac Game was sufficiently cool for me to jump through hoops and help ensure its place in tabletop archives. But the rules, folks. Board Game Geek considers this type of game an Oracle. It is not eligible to be added to BGG because:

Divination products, such as ouiji boards and divination tarot cards, usually do not have win and loss conditions, and as such are out of scope. This is true for most things that say they will tell the future.

Board Game Geek game criteria

And while that was a surprise to me, it almost certainly was not a surprise to my Oracle.

And while I am disappointing you, I can confirm that the magic here is driven by magnets. Or is it? During our play we tried every trick we could think of to see if we could control the outcome of the magic wand landing based on where we placed our fortune tablets within the white areas. And we couldn’t really. But maybe because there was four of us mucking it up, hardly a controlled group.

We also for some reason had it out for one of our cards in the heart suit. We traded that bad boy back and forth, left and right, never keeping, always exchanging. It’s just what we had to do to land on our final fortunes.

I have already mentioned that Divination is not a quick thing. This is a game where you have to wait for the wand to settle for 4 rounds x however many players you have (in our case 4 players and 16 times). It can be a bit long. But we had fun, and it’s not easy to put a price on a good fortune.

I can’t share the fortunes we received that day with you. Then they wouldn’t come true. But I can share four completely random fortunes:

An old friend from school will come to your house when you least expect it and will give the answer to something that's been puzzling you.
A movie star will argue with you next week to arrange a loan.
Someone you see every day will take hold of you when you're in the shower to cheat you out of something.
Your best friend will send a message through a friend sometime after this game to arrange a loan.

There is something very fun about making your fortune modular and then trading bits of it around before you land on a final fortune. Especially if you are trading fortune bits with your close people. Fortune outcomes range from silly to interesting to bizarre. I could wax philosophical about the part we play in the fortunes of others and the part they play in ours, but I’ll settle with: this is a silly game and we had silly fun.

play or pass

Play. The Mystery Zodiac Game is a fun novelty. It is not, by BGG definition, a game – which is worth noting. But it does require setup, it does require decisions, and it does rely heavily on luck which are all aspects of games often favored on Idle Remorse.

Review: Polar Dare!

By On September 26, 2020 With No Comments

Review: Polar Dare!
Publisher: Milton Bradley
Year: 1991
Tagline: The Game of Chills, Thrills and Spills

Cover shows a scary cartoon polar bear threatening a penguin

how we met

I found Polar Dare! at a thrift shop last summer, shortly after our group played Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur. I picked it up because it looked old, and once I picked it up I could see that it was a vintage, long-box Milton Bradley game. The gameplay looked identical to Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur to me. I was in a place where I felt overwhelmed with outstanding reviews, overwhelmed with my number of games, and I was super picky about buying anything. So I put it back on the shelf.

I must have been feeling foggy, and thank goodness I had backup. Bill grabbed Polar Dare! with a glance that mildly admonished me for putting it back on the shelf. And far be it from me to ever argue about picking up a vintage, long-box Milton Bradley game. And that’s how we met!

how it plays

Each player starts the game with 3 penguins, and your goal is to get all of your penguins safely to the North Pole. But watch out for that pesky Polar Bear!

On your turn, roll the die. If you roll a penguin with a number, you must make that total number of moves. Similarly if you roll a Polar Bear, you must use all 3 moves.

The die has either a penguin or polar bear next to a number and my photo has poor lighting
The die, at sunset.

A move consists of any of the following:

  1. Move an object (either one of your penguins or the Polar Bear, whatever you rolled) to an adjacent ice floe.
  2. Slide one ice floe forward or backward once. This is needed if no ice floe is adjacent to the penguin you want to move. It can also be used to help or hinder gameplay for you or your fellow players.

The only real difference in movement with Polar Bear is that you can’t move an ice floe with penguins on it. You can do this if you rolled a penguin.

An overhead shot at all ice floes at start and then a few ice floes moved
All ice floes start pushed toward Start, as in left photo. Right photo shows a few ice floes moved toward North Pole. They only move up and down, not left and right.

The goal when you roll the Polar Bear is to move him away from you or clear the path you need, or maybe move him toward the penguins controlled by your terrible friends. When the Polar Bear lands on an ice floe with one or more penguins, all of those penguins are sent back to start! OH NO!

The polar bear has his hands in the air very menacing
Our (almost titular) hero the Polar Bear

The first player to successfully land all three of their penguins on the shore of the North Pole wins!

how it went

I often gush over game covers, but only the really captivating ones. I don’t spend enough time gushing over game names I really like. I appreciate the name Polar Dare! very much. I think it is simple in a way that captures the theme as well as the spirit of the gameplay itself.

I think one of the reasons I was initially hesitant to pick up Polar Dare! was because we had just played Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur, and the gameplay sounded so very similar. And it is, really. I think I prefer Polar Dare! for a couple of reasons. I enjoy the moving ice floes to help or hinder player movement. And I certainly was better off not stacking my pawns to make a giant target. And while I love a novelty, like a wind up dinosaur, Polar Dare! just felt like a better game.

Our play featuring wine glass in the background
Ask not for whom the Polar Bear comes

Like other games in this get-from-point-A-to-point-B-and-watch-out-for-danger vein, you can choose to move your penguins en masse or get one to the end before risking another one. For Polar Dare! I like the idea of moving them closer together. The Polar Bear just feels like a more predictable opponent. But that’s probably just my gut steering me wrong. I certainly did not win, and the Polar Bear can come up at any point in the die rolling.

I remember John had an interesting approach where he was keeping his penguins mostly on the starting shore for the beginning chunk of the game. I can see how that might be fun in a diabolical way; he is able to move the floes when he rolls in order to disrupt the rest of us, to say nothing of controlling the Polar Bear when that happens. In this game, it didn’t pay off. He didn’t win either.

John's black penguins in foreground at Start with all others in play distantly
I mean, it’s a strategy. Red does not look so hot in this photo either. That was probably me.

Bill approached gameplay as he does with nearly all games: with a ruthless, straight-forward approach that he thinks will help him win as quickly as possible. But he doesn’t always win, and in this case he did not win.

Keri was the winner of Polar Dare! She was not always pleased with how her game was going, though. My notes indicate that at one point she exclaimed, “Well hot dog, I got a 1!” So I was surprised to come back and read the instructions and remember that there are no 1’s on the die. I bet it was a very funny joke, dripping with sarcasm, and that’s why I wrote it down. So I guess you’ll have to trust me on that.

play or pass

Pass, like the similar games we have reviewed. Polar Dare! is probably my favorite of the race-to-the-end games we have played so far, but it’s middle-of-the-road for me.

If you find Polar Dare! at thrift, it’s a great find and you can definitely resell it for a couple bucks. Make sure it has all the ice floes, the penguins, and the polar bear. The die is unique too. The plastic pieces that the floes float on are important too, but we were just missing one so we could still move the ice floe around accurately. I bet they’d be very simple to 3d print if needed.

Review: TAPPLE

By On August 30, 2020 With No Comments

Review: TAPPLE
Publisher: USAopoly
Year: 2013
Tagline: NAME IT. TAP IT. PASS IT.

The cover shows the TAPPLE wheel

how we met

TAPPLE was almost free, and the gameplay looked quick and fun. I was happy to pay 50 cents to give it a go. I’m pretty sure I even had to run out to the car to grab quarters. Worth it!

how it plays

FUN FACT: TAPPLE stands for Touch Activated Press & Play Letter Eliminator

TAPPLE can be played by anywhere from 2-8 players. The player with the middle initial closest to ‘A’ goes first. That player draws a category card and chooses a category for play. Then they announce the category for all players and press the large red timer button in the middle of the TAPPLE wheel.

An overhead shot of the Tapple wheel
The keen observer will note that six letters are missing: Q, U, V, X, Y and Z

The player then has 10 seconds to name something related to the category, press the letter that their answer begins with, then press the red timer button to reset the timer for the next player. That player can name any answer that begins with the remaining letters. After each successful answer the timer is reset by that player.

For example, a category might be Pizza Toppings:
– Player 1 says Pepperoni and presses P and then the red button
– Player 2 says Mushrooms and presses M and then the red button
– Player 3 says Anchovies and presses A and then the red button
– Player 4 says Sausage and presses S and then the red button
– Player 1 says Cheese and presses C and then the red button
– And you get the idea..

If players are unable to think of an answer beginning with one of the remaining letters within 10 seconds then the timer will buzz and that player is eliminated. Continue play with remaining players until only one player remains. That player gets to keep the category card (in the above case Pizza Toppings).

Example category cards include Actresses, Books, Footwear, Flowers, Historical Figures
A sampling of the category cards. Blue/white is meant to be simpler than Red/yellow

Then simply push any of the yellow buttons clockwise to reset the letters. The player to the left of the first player then chooses a category, sets the timer and begins a new round.

The first player to collect three category cards wins TAPPLE!

If by some miracle there is more than one player left after all letters are taken in a round, reset the letters and continue play with a new category except each player must give two answers using two different letters. The last player standing in this scenario gets both the original and the second category card.

how it went

TAPPLE is a super fun filler party game. Yours truly was not particularly good at it, but it was still fun to play. And player elimination is, fairly, a pet peeve for many people. But with TAPPLE play goes so quickly that watching remaining players is exciting. Even allowing for some players to run out of time, a full round would likely take less than 3.5 minutes.

I am not a fan of the TAPPLE box. It uses a tuck box, and my game storage is not loving enough to protect this style of box (nor was the thrift cycle). So it’s a bit crushed. But here’s one of the beautiful things about TAPPLE: the category cards fit into the bottom of the TAPPLE wheel itself! So while my box falls open all willy nilly, the cards are safe.

The back of the wheel with cards tucked away
The storage solution I never knew I needed

We played through a couple of times in our group of four. It was fun. Bill ultimately won, and according to my sticky note Bill and John cheated. How awful. We played long enough ago that I don’t remember the details. I’m not sure how you would cheat at TAPPLE except to insist on words matching categories that maybe don’t. The rules address this with a simple “majority rules” in the event of conflict.

Our play showing the wheel in use
The only photo I took of our initial play, where you can see most letters taken. Whatever the category was it looks like E, L and N are available.

It may be worth discussing some ground rules before play. As an example, say the category is Pizza Toppings and someone said Pepperoni so the letter P is taken. Can I say Chunks of Pineapple and take the C? The game encourages creativity, but only your group will know how your majority will settle.

A quick glance through the BGG ratings show that most people appreciate the light, fun play of TAPPLE. Many people suggest using cards from other games with it, which is an interesting idea that I will have to try soon.

play or pass

TAPPLE gets a play from me. It is perfect for a gaming household that sometimes wants to play a light game or enjoys hosting mixed groups. I only saw it the one time at thrift, but judging by BGG comments many have found it at thrift. What is that saying about good things coming when you wait?

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