Board Games o' Plenty: Patch
We’ll be taking a break shortly for Thanksgiving, but before we do, we wanted to share the results of our month-long gaming marathon. Fought nightly in between testing other items, we looked at around a dozen board games, most of them pretty new. Some of them are aimed at families, others at groups, and a few of them at more specific audiences- but almost any of them would make a good gift for the appropriate person, because pretty much all of them were fun!
Next we looked at Patch Games, and tried out three of their titles. Buzzword Junior is based on the best-seller Buzzword, but works for ages 7 and up (for four or more players in teams). The rules and goals are quite similar- a “buzzword” is given, and then your team is tasked with finding the buzzword in an answer to five questions (so, with “butter”, there could be “butterfly”, “peanut butter”, etc.) It’s easy to grasp, challenging, and really fun for kids- though they might feel uneven against adults or even older age groups. The included buzzer is nice, and there are plenty of questions, making the game a definite win among the folks we tried- even if it isn’t quite as good as the original.
Repeat, Pete! wasn’t our favorite game, but we could see if being good in a classroom setting to get people up and moving and mixing. It’s basically an active game of Simon Says (and does), as players act and speak out instructions from cards, and the next player has to add another action to the routine in order, until someone makes a mistake. The actions are suited to families, and are not quite embarrassing enough to be truly funny, or difficult enough to be interesting- the challenge is mostly in remembering the patterns. It might, oddly enough, make for a good drinking game, but the challenge just wasn’t there (even if the concept is sound).
Finally, Perfect Sense is a 3-6 player fairly new game that adds a sensory twist to riddles. Essentially, there are five riddles with the same answer, but each is focused on a different sense. Most of the riddles are fairly easy though, until you come to a stumper that is unfair (a common risk with riddles). For instance, the riddle “See my colors sit in a dish. I am never dirty. Guess if you wish.”- the answer is soap. But soap obviously gets dirty, and often isn’t colored… Anyway, for those who like riddles, the game will be quite a bit of fun, but there is really very little to the actual game and it might be more fun to simply read the cards for a fun challenge!
All of the games here are available online and in some stores and are $20 (for Buzzword Junior) and $30 (for the other two).
