Now THIS is REAL Trivia!

One thing that has always bothered me about trivia games is how easy they are. Well, I’m glad to say that I have finally found a game where that is most certainly not an issue. For Christmas, my mother bought me Blinded By Science Trivia Game, a trivia game about just about every type of science. Because that name is really long, I’m just going to call it Blinded By Science. Blinded By Science Trivia Game

Everything in this game, starting from the instructions, are science-y. The number of rounds in a game are the amount of colors in the rainbow for a short game, the number of the mission number of the Apollo spaceflight that brought Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon for a regular game, and the atomic number of phosphorus for a long game. Granted, you can choose to play more or less rounds depending on timing, and yes, they did include the numbers for the rounds, not just the clues. The first player to go is whichever one most closely resembles Charles Darwin.

How many cards go on the table depends on how many rounds and players there are. Multiply the rounds by the players and lay that many cards face down on the table. Each card has a name on the back that gives some clue to what the questions are about (for instance, Elementary, My Dear, was about the elements, and Bring Me A Shrubbery is about plants.) Most cards have three questions, but some have extra credit as well. Each question is worth a point.

Some questions are True or False, some are multiple choice, and some are open-ended. True or False questions include, “True or False? Penicillin was the first antibiotic widely used in modern medicine,” and “True or False? The parrotfish eats coral and poops sand.” Multiple choice questions are rare and include, “Which of the following are killed, or their growth impaired, with the use of antibiotics: bacteria, fungi, or viruses?” and open-ended questions make up the majority of the cards, with questions like, “What acid is added to silicone oil to produce Silly Putty?” and “Tomatoes are a member of what often toxic family?”

The answers to these, in order, as I’m sure you would love to know, are False, True, bacteria, Boric acid, and the Nightshade family. Yes, there is actually a type of fish that poops sand. How does that work? I have no clue, the card didn’t say. Sometimes, the card does include more information about the answer. For instance, the question about penicillin I mentioned above said, “False (sulfonamides were first; penicillin was discovered in 1928, but was not used to treat infections until 1942)”. Personally, I appreciate these notes, particularly with True or False and multiple choice questions.

You play through all of the cards, and whoever has the most points wins. There is also a version of the game where you play in teams, working together to answer the questions and gain points, though I haven’t played that option.

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Seven Dragons

Yup, dragons. Seven Dragons is a Looney Labs game that I first played at Windycon 42. This game is much like dominoes in that you are connecting similarities. For our types, there are (gee!) seven dragons. Seven Dragons

The red, blue, green, gold and black dragons are each a goal. For whoever has that dragon as their goal, they are trying to get seven of that color of dragon in a row. But I mentioned seven dragons, not five. Yes, yes. There are two others. First is the rainbow dragon. It counts as everything.

Secondly, the silver dragon. This dragon is one-of-a-kind and the starter piece. It’s color depends on the color of the top card in the discard pile. Wait… this is effectively dominoes, right? So why is there a discard pile? Well sometimes, instead of dragons to connect in the chain, your cards are actions. They could be “Trade Hands” or “Rotate Goals,” for instance. Each of these has a special symbol in the center that tells you which dragon it represents.

You cannot change the color of the silver dragon by merely playing these cards, however. If you play the action, the effects are played out and the card goes to the bottom of the discard. If you wish to change the color of the silver dragon, you choose to sacrifice the action, in which case it gets placed on top.

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Fluxx for Scientists!

And, to continue their extensive Fluxx franchise, Looney Labs brings us: Chemistry Fluxx! Perfect for chemistry students, teachers, and fanatics. Learn chemical symbols while stealing them from each other!Chemistry Fluxx

Most of the actions in Chemistry Fluxx are the same as traditional Fluxx, but some of the rules are different. My personal favorite is what I believe is called “Spontaneous Reaction.” It’s a free action rule stating that at the beginning of your turn, if you can name a chemical compound of any two or more of the keepers in front of you, you may draw a card. This cannot be a compound that you have already named. For instance, if you have Barium, Nitrogen and Oxygen, you could say, “Barium Nitrate” Ba(NO3)2 and draw a card. There’s also the Lab Coat Bonus. Whoever has the lab coat draws an extra card every turn.

The keepers are mostly elements, but sometimes equipment. I already mentioned the lab coat, and there are also test tubes, goggles, etc. Because the majority of the keepers are elements, most of the goals are about the elements. Goals are compounds like Carbon Dioxide, Water and Salt.

Speaking of goals, I have a question that perhaps one of you could answer for me: one of the goals is Laughing Gas, for which you need nitrogen and oxygen. But aren’t nitrogen and oxygen 99% of what we breath?

 

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Crossy Road

The other day, I was on my phone playing a game called Crossy Road when my mother looked over my shoulder and said, “Wait… you’ve downloaded Frogger?” I was naturally confused, as to me, Frogger is the game where you all sit in a circle with the “Detective” in the center, and the “Frogger” sticks their tongue out at the other individuals in the circle, causing the others to “die” while trying not to get caught by the detective.

So, as I have found to be wise when I am utterly confused, I asked her what she meant and then showed her how the game I was playing worked. She has since downloaded the game, which I take to be a good sign.

Crossy Road appIn Crossy Road, you pilot your avatar (the starter is a chicken) across roads and rivers, avoiding many different obstacles, such as various speeds of cars and trucks, getting run over by speedy trains and jumping into an icy river in an attempt to cross it.

You play daily challenges, which can be anything from frightening three birds (background scenery; I barely noticed them until I got one of these challenges) to hopping four hundred times (every time you move is counted as a “hop”). To move forwards, you can just tap the screen, and if you want to move sideways or backwards you swipe in that direction.

Challenges and daily prizes give you “gifts”, which you open to receive a randomized quantity of coins. You can also get coins by jumping on them during the game. Once you get one hundred coins, you can “win a prize”, which is where you win a randomized avatar.

The avatars are grouped by category. I’ve been mainly using the Arctic setting since near the very beginning, when I won an Arctic fox, then later on an Arctic hare, and I believe my default right now is a puffin.

Every map has it’s quirks. the Savanna has ridiculously breakneck fast tourist buses, Australia has alligators in place of some logs that can snap up and eat you if you jump too close to their head, and Pac-Man has ghosts to avoid instead of cars, but don’t be fooled by the little pellets that Pac-Man eats in standard Pac-Man: they’re just for show.

Each avatar has it’s quirks, too. The pumpkin leaves a trail of candy that falls out of its top every time it jumps, the vampire spontaneously turns into a bat and then turns back, and if you have your volume on, you can hear that the piper really does play bagpipes!

Some of the avatars are awesome, some are strange, some are adorable, and some are downright impossible! There’s 3.1, the computer; the African termite, which is kind of freaky due to the blocky animations; the baby animals category, which has fawns and iguana hatchlings and baby bunnies… so downright cute; and somehow the plate of kimchi is able to move independently?

Woah, look at me… I haven’t even told you the goal of the game! It’s a game against yourself, so your goal is to beat your highscore, and possibly those on the leaderboard, if you’re more ambitious than I am.

You can also play multiplayer if the other players are using the same router as you are, in which case the goal is to see how far you can make it as a team.

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Are You Phrazy… Holiday Edition!

I’ve already told you about the original Are You Phrazy, but what about the holiday version? Are You Phrazy? Carols Edition

If you didn’t read the previous post, and you don’t want to do so now, let me summarize: Are You Phrazy is a speed word game, where on your turn you play one of the cards in your hand, unless somebody else can match the previous card played, in which case if they say theirs before you say yours than play goes to the person directly after them. The goal is to be the first person without any cards left.

The holiday edition of Are You Phrazy is pretty much the same as the original, except for the messages on the cards. All of the messages are direct quotes from Christmas songs, like “Pa rum pum pum pum” and “You would even say it glows.”

After playing this version of Are You Phrazy, we revisited the original, and I determined that I preferred this one. I found the original to be less amusing than the holiday version, and also slightly ruder (You’ll never find a “Talk to the hand” or “Can the chatter” card in the holiday deck, because you’d never find either of those in a Christmas carol).

Also, a lot of the original Are You Phrazy lines are quotes from 80’s and 90’s TV shows, so I didn’t understand the humor involved.

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Mad Libs, the card game!

I’m sure most of you have played the original Mad Libs, where they have a whole story and you fill in the spaces with whatever words you please, but have you ever played the card game?Mad Libs the Game

I first tried this version of Mad Libs a year ago at DorkStock (see that post here) when I was hanging out with the Looney’s. Instead of answering with whatever word you want, you have to choose one of the words in your hand. Each card has a word and all of its conjugations, which you match accordingly to the conjugations required on the card.

The results are hilarious. “He who strikes last strikes best, but he who lives by the mud shall die by the mud.” Wait… what?

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Superfight

Superfight: aka the strangest argument you’ve ever been a party to! Where the group discussion isn’t what toppings should be on the pizza, but whether one hundred Genghis Khans with a battleship would be able to defeat a steel, fire-breathing dinosaur skeleton*.Superfight

In Superfight you are drawing three objects (mostly people), like MacGyver or Ghandi, and three descriptions, like “has a puppy gun” or “can remain invisible as long as they hold their breath”. You take the character of your choice as well as two descriptions, one of your preference and one random.

Everybody reveals their strange, deadly combinations, and then the argument commences! It’s best to play this game with somebody sitting on the side as the Judge, because otherwise you may never reach a consensus. The debate is about which one would be best able to defeat the others, and it can get pretty silly! For instance, my fire-breathing Hulk with a portal gun managed to defeat my mother’s acid-spitting, neurotoxin-emitting demon because I just summoned the Bifrost** or something similar and teleported her away!

On occasion, the card turns up where there are multiple interpretations thereof. For instance, my cousin insisted that his “can control all animals” card included humans, since we are animals, and when I played the character “Mr. Rogers”, I insisted that it was Mr. Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (played by Chris Evans in the MCU).

In the end, it’s not about who wins, but who can claim and defend the title of the craziest, silliest, most overpowered being in the history of Superfight***!

 

*Yes, this was a real scenario.

**Thor can handle an acid-spitting, neurotoxin-emitting demon, right?

***There is no documented record of the actual craziest, silliest, and most overpowered combination that has been drawn.

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Crazy Ates

Yes, you read that right. Crazy Ates, not Crazy Eights. Most of you know the original, Crazy Eights, with the boring numbers, but Crazy Ates steps it up a level: each number has a food allocated to it!Crazy Ates

Possibly my favorite is 10, the banana split. But what’s really fun is when you add the colors. You know how in Crazy Eights, there are colors as well as numbers to match? Hopefully, you know what I’m talking about. Anyways, something my cousins and I like to do is think of a food of that color and add it to the dish of that number. For example, a blue number 3 could be the blue cheese burger. Or a purple 9 could be an eggplant quiche. It adds just a little more flavor to the original play.

8 stands as the wild card, depicted by a steak with ice cream on top (please don’t ask). If you don’t have a matching number or color to the card in play as of your turn, you can play your favorite dead cow topped with dairy to get you out of drawing! The goal of the game is to be the first person without any cards left.

Both the Crazy Eights and Crazy Ates are simple and good for little kids while not being brain-numbingly boring for the adults. There’s still a level of strategy involved, even if it is pretty small.

 

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Time to go to the Robot Lab!

This week I’d like to introduce a Kickstarter game called Robot Lab. I’ll give you one guess on what it’s about: yup, it’s about robots!

In Robot Lab, you each choose a color for the body of your robot. As you draw cards throughout the game, you have two goals: get a head, two arms and two legs of your robot’s color attached to your robot, and stop your opponent from reaching that goal.Robot Lab

You can do this by using your “attach” turn to attach a piece you don’t want onto their robot. For instance, if they’re building an orange robot, and you’re building blue, and they had no head, you could use your turn to attach a red head from your hand onto their robot.

This game could theoretically be adapted to be cooperative or single-player, but I think that would take a lot of the fun out of it. One of the best parts is that it takes the Munchkin aspect of stabbing your friend in the back to simplest form. No fancy, triple-card moves, just a wrong colored arm and a turn to spare.

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Harry Potter Trivia!

For all of the Potterheads like me out there, it turns out there is now a Harry Potter Trivia game! I found it at Hot Topic when I was spending some gift cards I got for my birthday.Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit

The questions were in six categories, each assigned to a different color: The Dark Arts: Purple; Hogwarts: Blue; Magical Spells & Potions: Pink; Magical Objects: Orange; Magical People: Yellow; and Animals & Magical Creatures: Green. Questions in a category could range from “What creature did Hagrid introduce to the class during his first lesson?” to “What type of dragon does Cedric Diggory face in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament?”.

For my first game, I played with Mom, but then she had to go make dinner. Luckily, one of the perks of this game is that you can play it by yourself, too. Be forewarned: some of the questions are very hard.

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