Wits and Wagers - A Much Delayed Review

Quite some time ago, the designer of "Wits and Wagers" contacted me after having read this blog and asked if we would like to try an evaluation copy of Wits and Wagers, on the condition that I review it here and at BGG. I responded that I would, so long as he understood that I would afford no special treatment for having sent us a copy of the game for the price of the shipping. After much unintended delay, here is that review. My apologies to Mr. Crapuchettes for failing to get a review in before the Christmas holidays.

Concept & Overview

Wits and Wagers is a party game designed for between three and twenty-one players. It combines elements of a standard trivia game with competitive betting, the gestalt resembling the price estimation element of the TV show "The Price is Right" combined with gambling. The game is played on a soft, pliable playing mat approximately 90cm (3') long by 30cm (1') wide printed on a material commonly found in mouse pads. Players answer questions asked from a wide range of categories, write down their answers with dry erase markers on small answer cards, and place their bets with plastic poker chips and wooden ownership marking cubes.

The game includes the rubber playing mat, a sand timer, seven dry erase pens, seven laminated answer cards, 14 wooden betting cubes, 120 plastic poker chips in red and blue, a rules booklet and a box of trivia questions.

Dominic Crapuchettes offers up this fun little game after his intitial (as far as I can tell from BGG) debut game of Cluzzle. The two games share very little in common, so no comparisons will be made.

As a disclaimer, I was sent this game as an evaluation copy by North Star Games. I will comment as an aside that Mr. Crapuchettes is helpful, open to suggestion and just all-around nice in the few e-mails I've exchanged with him. To be perfectly honest, it was not a game I might have purchased on my own, but after agreeing to evaluate it and playing several times with experienced boardgamers, family and casual-playing friends, this is definitely a game I would buy or recommend.

Game Mechanics

The game is very simple - and very appropriately so for a party game intended to appeal to a wide market.

Players choose a colour. In the event that there are more than seven players, players are grouped into teams so that each of the seven colours provided represents a team. Each player or team is given ten red chips representing five points, and three blue chips representing ten points for a total of 80 points.

One player is designated the "Question Reader", another is designated the "Banker" and assume the roles for the rest of the game. Some players have suggested that the "Question Reader" role rotate, but I feel that neither role gains any particular advantage.

There are seven question rounds in the game. For each question, the Question Reader reads the question (question 1 on the card for the first round, question 2 on the card for the second round, etc.), waits for any requests for clarification, then flips the 30-second sand timer. Players/teams then have until the timer runs out to write down their answer to the question. All questions have been written so that they can are answered with a number. The best answer is the one which comes closest without going over (the "Price is Right" element). This is a critical distinction and should be emphasized when explaining the game.

After all of the players have written their answers, they are revealed and then arranged on the playing mat from smallest to highest, in boxes which correspond to 5:1, 4:1, 3:1, 2:1, 1:1 (and then upwards again) payouts. Duplicate answers are stacked in the same box. If there are an odd number of different answers after stacking duplicates, they are arranged with the middle answer on the 1:1 odds box and the higher and lower answers above and below them. Even numbers of answers are arranged so that the centre 1:1 box is empty.

Players then have thirty seconds to place bets. Bets can be between 0 and 10 points. Bet chips are marked with a wooden marker cube of the player's colour. If 10 points are bet, the points can be split between two answers by placing two 5 point chips and placing marker cubes on both chips, or all ten can be bet on the same answer. It should be clarified to first time players that betting is always optional.

After the timer runs out, the correct answer is read from the back of the question card. The winning answer is the one which comes closest without going over. If all answers are higher than the actual answer, the special "The Correct Answer is smaller than all given answers" box pays out. Otherwise, the box containing the winning answer pays out at the odds for that box. The banker also gives a ten point bonus in chips to the player/team whose answer cards were in the winning payout box.

This continues for six rounds. On the seventh round, there is no limit on betting (once again, players can still bet zero), but they can only split their bet between two boxes as marked by their coloured cubes.

The player/team with the most points after the seventh round is the winner.


Artwork and Components


The production design of this game is somewhat lacklustre, though entirely functional. With apologies to the artist, the illustrations have a clip-art/cartoon appearance which seems somewhat "cheap". Combined with bright colours and an overly exaggerated "excitement factor" apparent in all the players, there is a distinct game-show feel to the artwork which, although not inappropriate, might have been done better.


The game box features three major illustrations, a character which appears to be in a game show, a group of people apparently orgasmically excited about something or other, and a "cool guy" looking like he's won a bunch of money at poker. This actually communicates quite effectively the three core ideas of the game - "game show/trivia", "party/group fun" and "betting". To be quite honest, I don't know how else I might have done the art differently, but somehow it feels like it should be better.


The playing mat is well laid out and there is plenty of room for what needs to be done in each area. Wager odds are clearly marked and it never impedes gameplay. The rubber mat idea is quite suitable for the game, and the green colour immediately brings to mind casino betting areas, as well as being gentle on the eyes.

The foldable aspect of the mat is quite nice, lending itself to easy placement and no problems with warp causing bets to slide around on the board.

The question cards are not remarkable, being pretty similar to any trivia game you might have played. There is no slipcover box provided for their storage, but this is a minor issue.

The wooden cubes are standard stock - nothing good or bad about them. They are suitably large enough to not be easily lost, while also not too large to make placement or balancing on top of stacks of chips difficult.

The plastic poker chips are pretty standard stock as well, but many players commented on how they feel "cheap". Many people are now used to the more expensive clay gambling chips used at casinos and in poker games, and the old plastic chips, once entirely serviceable, feel chintzy by comparison. While it would probably jack up the price of the set (not to mention shipping weight) to include better quality ceramic chips, thus making the idea impracticable, perhaps if a reprint or a deluxe edition is published, they should seriously consider higher quality chips.

The laminated answer cards are nicely done. It's easy to determine colour, and the dry erase marker wipes off easily. The reverse side is patterned like the back of a playing card, which, with the green rubber mat, contributes to the overall "casino" feel of the game in play.

A minor though not insignificant quibble about the dry erase markers included with the box should be mentioned. All of them worked fine, but the caps do not fit snugly on the reverse end of the pen when removed. This can easily lead to lost caps. Almost every playing group commented on how this was an annoying issue to them, and hopefully would be addressed with any future runs of this game - get markers that when you pull off the caps, you can stick them snugly on the other end. The sand timer is also unremarkable, but seems sturdy enough for repeated use.

Although the game rules indicated there should be a "napkin" available to each player, none is included in the box. A minor issue, and nothing which should detract from the game. Perhaps a deluxe edition could include cheap dry-erase marker erasers, perhaps on the pen caps.

Gameplay

This game plays quickly in about 20 to 30 minutes. In every case where I brought it out, with experienced gamers, family or casual friends alike, everyone wanted to play more than one game. In the case of my extended adult family (father, mother, uncles and aunts) we actually played for eight successive games in one evening because everyone was enjoying it so much. This was surprising because this particular group is not much of a gaming-oriented bunch. My father, who was most sceptical, ended up as one of its more enthusiastic players.

Importance should be placed on relatively firm enforcement of time limits. We have a house rule that bets or answers not placed on the board before the timer runs out are not put into play at all.

The concept sounds somewhat dry to explain it, but everyone gets into it quickly. You have to repeat certain rules with first time players - "closest without going over" and bet limits/methods seem to be the ones which cause the most confusion, but they are not inherently difficult.

Small bits of trivia and information have been included with the answers on the back of question cards, and information sources are quoted on the front. This can help make the game even more interesting if you have a good Question Reader.

The questions themselves represent a nice variety, and as has been demonstrated elsewhere in BGG, there is a method to the distribution. Many of the questions are in the "you can't possibly know that" category, and are best approached from a best estimate or "wild-assed guess" strategy. First time players should be assured that it is not so important to answer correctly as it is to bet correctly.

As a Canadian, I would comment that the questions are largely America-centric, but this is common in many trivia games. If there is an international edition or deluxe edition released, I highly recommend a set of questions with a much broader geographic and cultural basis.

The game isn't quite as successful when played in teams, but still works well. The optimal number of players is actually exactly seven, in my opinion, but 5-14 works fine. (we've played with 12). I can't see three or four players having nearly as much fun.

Most players recognize quickly the strategy of strategic betting, betting on the answer with the largest gulf between it and the next highest while still likely being in the correct range.

The designer has recommended a few variants, which I believe can be found in the game entry forums at BGG.

Summary

This game is fun, fast and easy with broad appeal and a shallow learning curve. Perfect for a party game, but having a bit more meat than the usual roll and move grind of Trivial Pursuit and Scene It. It also has a limited playing time - unless you are not doing things right, games will almost always be over within 30 minutes, and 20 minutes is more common. There's virtually no down-time (as there can be in other trivia games where a player can continue to move with several successfully answered questions) and there is a certain level of excitement (generated by the timers) to the betting and answering.

I highly recommend this game for anyone who likes party games. It is definitely in my top three of manufactured party games. It doesn't have much appeal for euro-only gamers, as the betting strategy can be largely negated by the no-limits "all-in" round at the last round.

I do feel that the international appeal of the game could be increased dramatically by selecting more international questions.

One of the most telling aspects about the game is that every time I've introduced it to a new group of players, they’ve asked where they can buy a copy. I've enthusiastically recommended local gaming stores in my area where I know the game is carried. If you need a party game that you can pull out and play anytime with almost any group of players, this is one to have.

Ringing in New Year, Geek Style (Things..., Wits and Wagers, Twister, Cluzzle, Mission: Red Planet)

For New Years the Wags group brought together their significant others and a few unwashed (?) friends and relatives for an evening of wine, cheese, food and laughter at Casa Agent Easy.

Obviously, a few games were played!

Things came out first. I'm not sure that we've documented this before on the blog, but we've played a few times before. If you haven't played it, the premise is simple: A "reader" chooses a card at random and reads it to the group. "Things... you shouldn't put on top of your car", for example. Everyone answers on a piece of paper and returns to the "reader". The reader then reads them to the rest of the players and everyone, in turn, tries to guess who wrote what. (To the sample question, I wrote "the bottom of your car")

Bottom line: This game is hilarious. I enjoy many party games, and many of them are quite funny (Time's Up, Taboo, Apples to Apples, etc), but none of them are this funny. Sadly, the part where players guess each other's answers does not live up to the fun of writing/reading them. I'd love to come up with a better system to go with the game (I posted a question on BGG in case someone else could think of one). Next time, I'd like to try simply reading all the answers once, then reading them again one at a time as people write down who they think wrote what. 1 point per correct answer.

At 11 people, it took a long time for all the correct answers to get guessed. Also, the difficulty in remembering all the answers seemed to drag the game a bit. Still, I think everyone had a good time since there was a lot of laughter as the answers came out... Kozure did very well in the beginning, winning the 6 point bonus for being the last player standing on several occasions. My sister in law was surprisingly good at guessing herself, particularly since she didn't know anyone there!
We didn't bother counting up the final scores, but I'm pretty sure Kozure had it in the bag.

Next up we played a quick game of Wits and Wagers. I hadn't played this before, but most of the rest of the group had. This is a trivia game where the trivia doesn't really matter!

The idea is interesting: The game asks a question you are not likely to know the answer to. Everyone takes a guess, and the answers are all layed out on a betting mat in order. At this point, everyone must bet on which answer(s) they feel are the correct ones! The lowest and highest answer will payout more, whereas the median answers pay out less. At the end of a number of rounds (8?), the winner is the player or team with the most money.

The concept is cool because there are points for being the player with the closest answer (without going over) and there are points for correctly betting on the answer (whether it's yours or not). Therefore, a player with little or no knowledge of trivia can participate and have a good time. If you don't do well on the trivia, you still might win on the strength of good betting.

I've only played once, but so far I'm a little ambivalent on the game, despite how much I like the idea. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think it's because there's a few contradictory things going on in the final product:

1) In trivia games, the fun tends to be in testing yourself in trying to answer the most questions correctly. Here, most of the questions are impossible to answer, so that tension is quickly lost. Those that can be answered still suffer from the following problem...
2) Although the premise is that a player with little/ no knowledge of trivia can compete, in effect both phases of the game reward the player who know the correct answer.
3) I personally find betting more interesting when it's tied to some sort of bluffing (poker), or to odds created through hidden and revealed information (blackjack). Betting in Wits and Wagers is more akin to betting in Roulette... kind of a crapshoot.

There's no denying that it was a fast and interesting party game, but it wasn't funny or challenging enough to make me want to choose it over others I prefer (though I'd be more than happy to play again, if someone else suggested it). Kozure will be writing a more thorough review on BGG before long, now that he's had a chance to play it with lots of different groups of people.

We wrapped up the evening's game playing with a variation of twister which is played on a map of the world. Now, I'm not old, but I'm not young either (33). I thought the days were I would even imagine playing this had long gone, but my lovely wife really wanted to play so we gave it a shot. Predictably, it was silly, embarrassing fun. It also hurt a little. We played three rounds, and all had a good laugh (particularly when Luch took the role of spinner and ignored everything he spun... calling out instead the worst/ most difficult maneuvre possible on every round).

On new year's day, we tried a few rounds of Cluzzle. This is a game were players choose a word from a list to model out of clay. Everyone then has to try to guess what the other player sculpted over three rounds of questions/ answers. The trick is that a player gets more points if their sculpture is guessed in the third round than in the first, but they get no points if it's not guessed at all. Therefore, you want to make your sculpture difficult to guess, but not TOO difficult.

I had fun with this one. Like Pictionary, charades, and other such games, it's fun to test yourself against the semi-artistic challenge of representing something across a different medium. The added twist of wanting the sculpture to be hard but not too hard is a little confusing at first, but definitely makes playing the game an interesting challenge. As with Things..., I have a bit of an objection with the scoring, but it's a comparatively minor point (players who guess correctly in the first round of the game score LESS points than those who do it in the 3rd round). There are apparently good reasons for this, but in the end it feels like an entirely different scheme might have been better.

Lastly, we played Mission: Red Planet. Quite a change of pace!

Mission: Red Planet is the latest chaos-fest from Bruno Faidutti (and co-designer Bruno Cathala). Players are trying to get their astronauts onto Mars in order to become rich from the mining of that planet's resources. It's been described as Citadels meets El Grande. While that's fairly accurate, I would add that there is a dash of Puerto Rico in there and that the sum of it's parts left me feeling like I do when I play Robo-Rally.

How's that for a summary?

Ok. Here's a better one.

A map of Mars is the main play board. The map is divided into several regions. Five Space Ships are waiting at a launch pad. Each one has a destination to a particular region of Mars, and a maximum number of astronauts it can take there.

Each player has a reserve of astronauts, and a hand of "role" cards. Every round, players simultaneously choose a role card which determines the turn order and how they get their astronauts onto the ships. Any ship which is filled to capacity launches, preventing any other player from adding to it. Once all players have taken their turn, any ship which has launched lands at it's destination and the astronauts are placed in that region. At the end of the 5th, 8th and 10th (last) round, scoring occurs. Points are only awarded to the player with the mighest number of astronauts in a region.

It all sounds pretty straight-forward, but it's really not. As in Citadels, the role cards each have special abilities which can be rather chaotic (such as the saboteur which can destroy a space ship before it takes off, the pilot which can change the destination of a ship, or the femme fatale which can convert another player's token to your colour). Like Puerto Rico, the simple effect of having ships which fill up and depart can cause the best laid plans to fail if you go late in the turn order. Add to that a set of event cards which give players hidden objectives for bonus points and endgame effects on the various outer regions of the map and things become rather difficult to control. When I say that I felt like I was playing RoboRally, I meant it in the sense that RoboRally is about trying to extract order from chaos, then crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

I had my hopes up for this one, because the theme is very good, the game is very pretty and the execution seemed like a very interesting twist on many familiar mechanics. The end result is a fun game, which works better than it should. It's not without it's flaws, however. I disliked that in order to make an informed decision, I constantly had to relate the ships in play with the regions on the map. It would have been nice if the ships were layed immediately into their destination region (I don't think there is enough room for that, even if we wanted to). Also, 9 roles is too many. With 10 rounds in the game, 9 is not enough to go the entire game without playing the prospector (who allows players to reclaim their spent roles), but too many to make decision making simple. The game is obviously quite chaotic, but I suspect that the mechanisms to reduce the chaos are there, once we become more familiar with the game (not to mention that I don't mind chaos if it's fun... Robo-Rally IS in my top 10 games).

It was a five player game and I was doing poorly from the beginning. It took me some time to get used to the rhythm created by placing your astronauts and waiting for ships to launch. I was too often counting my chickens before they were hatched! Note to self: If an astronaut doesn't make it to the planet, it doesn't count towards the majority...

I also missed using the explorer on two of the scoring rounds, which most of the other players used to very good effect. Kozure did a very nice job cornering the ice, and snapping up the bonus for that (even though my brother in law gave him a good run for his money). Both my brother in law and my sister in law did well at choosing a few areas of the board to concentrate on and established solid ownership. Kozure was picked as the leader and got hammered on more than a few occasions, but it wasn't enough... he won the game. I think everyone enjoyed it, and I bet future playing will be even better.

Happy New Year everyone. I hope this coming year is even better than the one that just ended.

We are All Bulldogs on the Pantleg of Opportunity

"All hail to the thief

But I'm not!

Don't question my

Authority or put me

In the dock

Cozimnot!

Go & tell the king that

The sky is falling in

When it's not

Maybe not."

2+2=5

from the album "Hail to the Thief"

Radiohead

As jackbooted blackshirts goose-stepped their way through the streets of Wellington, New Zealand, for the second time in the night, I decided it was time to reflect on the timely political commentary that doubled as a game in the form of Ideology: The War of Ideas.

Ideology, a first-time effort from designer Andrew Park and published by Z-Man Games, is a very compact game, both in terms of a well-written and bug-free ruleset as well as its physical box size. Once out of the box, however, the game both literally and metaphorically expands dramatically.

Ideology represents the 20th century conflicts between clashing “ideals” – Capitalism, Communism, Fascism, Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism. Each of the ideologies, controlled by 2-5 players, competes to obtain 12 points of global influence by bringing various regions under their sway.

Using military, economic and culture influence, drawn at the start of every turn during the resource phase, players may influence uncontrolled regions during the foreign influence phase, or initiate conflicts to eliminate enemy influence during the conflict phase. During the trade phase (just before foreign influence and conflict), players may discard influence card up to the number of regions controlled by the ideology. After trade comes development, wherein the players improve their holdings and develop advancements. After the dust has settled, a diplomacy phase follows, in which a very elegant method of determining political stance (peace, neutral, war) can have dramatic effects on the following turn. Finally, during the assessment phase, nations are increased in development and players check to see if anyone has fulfilled the end-game condition of 12 global influence points. If not, turn order is determined for the next turn and play continues.

The game seems initially complex, but gameplay is smooth and interactive. Ideology also often manages to mirror historical conflicts and situations (with the exception of the Fascist takeover of Hobbit-land above) with startling familiarity.

In two game sessions, the Soviet-Afghan war, a mini-WWII and the rise of dictatorships in South American made their appearance. Not to be confined to history, however, the games also saw Canada become completely Communist, a brief Islamic revolution in Japan, and a fascist invasion of Cuba.

In our first session, with Adolf Easy, Commie Shemp, Mullah Hapi and King Kozure competing, we failed to recognize the threat of the Red Menace’s iron curtain ability, and reacted too late to Mother Russia clasping most of Asia to its ample steel bosom. Communism reigned supreme in this world, comrade.

In the second, with our lessons squarely learned, somehow Shemp and Easy drew identical ideologies to the previous game, but with President Kozure and Emperor Hapi now making an appearance. The game was much more strategic this time, with an all-out “kill the leader” tactics much in vogue. Despite constant attacks and a very weary-looking Adolf Easy weathering union riots in Germany, the Fascists marched to victory. Shemp made frequent use of the totalitarianism special ability to stomp on the head of fledgling Capitalism in Canada. Capitalism, under the shaky leadership of President Kozure, managed only a dismal last-place finish, with Hapi and Shemp taking third and second respectively.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the game. Mechanics were tight but not confining, pacing was good without a lot of downtime, and the theme was well explored. My only quibble might be with the thin cardstock of some of the counters. I initially had a problem with the small size of the influence and advancement cards, but after actually playing the game, I realized that any larger and you would need a ping-pong table to play. As it was, even on Shemp’s medium-small dining room table, we had a tight fit. A minor drawback to a game debut which, in my opinion, is one of the strongest so far in my collection.

To kick off the evening, in honour of our theme, “Hail to the Thief”, we played a round of Taboo with US election-themed words. Chimpanzee, Pantleg, Pie, United Nations, Moral Majority, Fallujah, Al Gore, George W. Bush and other similarly loaded words, people and phrases made their way into the lexicon. A lot of fun that certainly put us in the mood for Ideology.