The lovely people at Big Potato Games sent me an Intriguing box of goodies recently. I grabbed the fam, grabbed a few beers and dove straight in.
My family love party games and this little box brought us laughter and entertainment in differing amounts. There's everything from dexterity all the way down to raucous, shouty affairs. All is welcome in our game sessions.
Cards Vs Gravity
The first game we played was Cards Against Gravity, an uncanny game of card balancing. The game comes with an attachment that fits into any standard-sized bottle. From this attachment, you and your team must build an ever-expanding, towering tree of cards.
Each player has their own deck, made up of differing card colors and maybe even one of the 'special’ cards. These cards are either thinner or thicker than the standard Cards, adding further spice to card placement.
We enjoyed this one a lot. Even If the end game condition was a bit murky. We just played for fun had a laugh and shouted a lot.
You Can't Say Umm
This team- based game had us in stitches, you get two cards and must describe them to your teammate without stuttering, saying 'um’ or saying anything on the card. These cards are Just normal things to describe but as they both have to be answered at the same time, It makes some of the descriptions and therefore answers obtuse and hilarious.
The game comes with an adorable little bell, you know the ones, the ones you get at shops that you use to get assistants attention. You get to ring it every time the opposing team make an error. Not only does this symbolise you getting a point but it increasingly makes the other team mad, which never stops being funny.
Throw into that a few weird rules that unlock as you get more points and you have an entertaining, quirky party game we all had fun playing.
P for Pizza
P for Pizza Is one of those party games that will reward the quick thinkers within your group. The cards are a triangular shape, like pizza slices and have letters on one side and categories on the other. Your goal in P for Pizza is simple, answer enough categories to make a pizza slice made out of the letter cards, nine to be precise. The three categories on the back of the pizza slices are for easy, medium and hard topics. Your first five are easy, then 3 medium and you finish up with one hard one.
As you take these cards from the middle of the table and add them to your pizza, new ones are revealed, with new letters and categories respectively. Fast hands, fast thoughts and a bit of knowledge is required here. What is shakes out to be mostly though is the category and letter combination you have just thought of is gone before you engage your mouth and hout it out. Good times indeed!
Overall, we had a lot of laughs with this one. A bit like Dobble, players seem to go onstreaks of two or three correct answers while players gather their thoughts. Once your in the groove things come easy but now and again your brain just freezes, it's fun, loud and a good addition to any breezy party game session.
Dumb Questions to Ask Your Friends
In this Big Potato game, a category is chosen and and then five questions from said category are placed in a small deck. Each of the non guessing players then takes a look at the top card, thinks of an answer and then the deck is shuffled. All these cards, with the category being the same will have similar answers, it's up to the guesser to work out, from the others players answer which card the answers relate too.
The guesser then places the cards from most likely to least likey and gets points according to how far up the scale the correct card was. It's a simple gme for sure, but it does garner conversation and debate, like some of the best party games. “Why do you think that” and “No mate, that is so not the case” were uttered regularly around the table and there was constant conversation throughout. Which is always welcome in party game situations.
We enjoyed this one, perhaps not as much as the others but still, if you like working out how your friends think and like to mull over choices with your friends, then this one may be for you.
Sounds Fishy
This one is hilarious, it requires a bit of bluffing and a sprinkling of forward thinking. The clue giver has a question with the corresponding answer on the back so all the players can see. The other players have been given secret roles. One gives the correct answer and the others must give incorrect, made-up answers, trying to fool the clue giver into thinking it's the right one.
We loved this quirky little simple game. The questions are silly, so the answers given are silly and everything descends into laughter and stupidness. I think due to most of the answers being quite unbelievable, it helps players blend into the mire and even the most irreverent of answers are decent answers. It’s enjoyable, simple and anyone can get involved.
The Chameleon - Travel Pack
This is the little travel brother to the main, bigger version of Chameleon, which I already have. Similar to sounds fishy, in Chameleon, you are trying to blend in, as the Chameleon, against the other players without really knowing what the answer is.
In Chameleon, one player is the Chameleon and everyone else is trying to work out who they are. A card gets turned with an answer grid on and a category, every player gets a card with either The Chameleon written on it, or a grid of die rolls that correspond to the answer grid in the middle of the table. The dice are rolled and only the non-chameleon players know which answer is the right one.
Everyone in turn order gives one word to describe the answer, including the Chameleon. At the end, everyone votes who the Chameleon is, if the Chameleon managed to blend into the crowd, they win, otherwise, if they got the most votes they have one chance to save themselves. If they can correctly identify the real answer.
I have had The Chameleon for a while and we still play it often. It has the right amount of bluffing and deduction to satisfy a party audience, it gets everyone involved and accusing each other. Going first as the Chameleon is a killer though.
My Conclusion
Big thanks to Big Potato Games, this bundle of games kept me and my family entertained for quite a few games nights and some of them will be played for a long time into the future.
I think our favourites were Sounds Fishy and You can’t Say Umm, they have the perfect mix of weirdness, laughing and competitiveness we need on a party game night. The Chameleon is another great game but we already have that, having a travel version is great for trips out though.
If you like quick thinking and a knowledge requirement, then P for Pizza ia also a good choice. If you fancy a bit of dexterity in your evening game sessions then Cards against Gravity is fun, even though there are better dexterity games on the market currently.
All of these Big Potato games are fun in the right setting with the right people, and Big Potato make some really great party experiences. I hope this little group of reviews helps you pick out something to possibly play on your next party game night, I certainly had fun writing it and playing these games