Just One and Fun Facts: Partyyyyyyy!
Do you feel that? Go ahead, smell the fresh air... Aaaaahhhh... It's November slowly enveloping us, preparing us in its own way to welcome the first snowflakes, to shine our snow shovels, to puff our pompoms... And before we be really ready, well… IT'S GOING TO BE THE HOLIDAYS. You know it. Do not lie. It cannot be avoided unless you have set foot in a store, a grocery store, a pharmacy.
In short, give yourself time: you too will be Christmasized, whether you like it or not! [insert sound effect here – Santa's laughter mixed with that of a clump]
That's why we, Mooh and Bibz, have solutions for you! Because tourtière and cold buffets, turkey and caribou à mononc Stéphane, tipsy cousins and awkward gift exchanges are all well and good, but you have to find a way to distract everyone in a healthy way, when even? So this week, it's two games from the same publisher, Repos, that we present to you: Just One and Fun Facts, which we – what? Oh. No, mononc Stéphane, no more caribou, thank you.
JustOne
Family or friends, or both, have overindulged in the food and the atmosphere is becoming soporific? Shake their brains a little with Just One, a charming, simple game that puts players on a single team, to try to make one of them guess a single and single word (do you see the trend emerging?). Simple concept, again.
In front of the player who will have to guess is a card, with five numbered words. From 1 to 5, yes. Logically, though. The “guesser” chooses one of the five words, blindly. Everyone around the table, using the small displays and erasable markers, must write a word, just one, which will serve as a clue to the guesser. Once again, simplicity reigns…
Where it gets complicated is afterwards. The guesser closes their eyes, then the clues (the players who give hints, thank you very much) reveal their clues to each other, before the guesser can read them. If a clue is found more than once on the displays, the players who gave the same word must erase it and lay down their display. Because there can only be… one.
Then the guesser opens their eyes and the clues reveal their words. Based on this display of words (complete or partial), the guesser must now demonstrate that he deserves his title and give his answer, which must consist of only one word, only one. If he is not confident, he can also skip his turn...
Is the word correct? A point for the team (we keep the card of the round)! Did the guesser make a mistake? Minus two points for the team. If, on the other hand, the latter opts to pass, a loss limited to one point (only one) is inflicted. We complete exactly 13 rounds, then we total the number of accumulated cards, which is equivalent to the final score… There you go! That's all.
The verdict
One can imagine that within a particularly competitive team, Just One could give rise to bitter remonstrances on the part of informants: "Bah, you didn't make the link between paper , stimulation , pelican and asparagus ? It is obvious that the word is MOON! » That said, we are sincerely of the opinion that this is not the vocation, the heart of Just One. This simple little game is an excellent distraction, a superb little atmosphere warmer.
Around our table, the crowd was heterogeneous: inveterate Euro-type gamers, occasional gamers, three teenagers, including one who absolutely doesn't like games, in general (our teenager, let's call her Yukiko)... A crowd that we would naturally not tend to unite and believe that everyone would feel included and satisfied. And yet! We get caught up in the game (no pun intended), with Just One, and we sincerely hope that the others haven't "stolen" our word (moreover, when that happens, we look at each other silently and we get the big eyes, a question of not spilling the beans on the eliminated word, which would essentially be cheating.
Between two heavier games, or simply as a late night, afternoon or morning activity, there's no bad time to get Just One out on the table. An installation that only takes a few seconds, and an equivalent storage. We even enjoyed playing Just One without even counting the points. And whether you choose to do 13 rounds, or just six or seven, the choice is up to you, depending on how much time you have.
And quite honestly, rounds you can also play… just one …
Fun Facts
Just One is over, and Mononc Stéphane no longer makes the difference between the turkey and the cat? Never mind – let him sleep on the counter, poor bugger, and pull out Fun Facts! You can tell him everything that happened… around January 7th.
Each round proposes a given affirmation to the table. For example: “From 0 to 100, how would you rate your appreciation of the olives stuffed with aunt Anne-Marie? » or even « How many platters of atacas did you eat this evening? (Don't worry – none of these examples actually appear in-game. At least, we hope so.) Long story short, this will still be a question that each player answers with a numerical value. Write this value on one side of a plastic chevron (like a caret, basically) with an erasable marker (this side remains hidden from other players). On the other side, we write our name.
When everyone has finished answering, starting with the player who read the question (a different player each round), the players take turns placing their chevrons on the table. The first player (J1) places his chevron on the table, with the side bearing his name visible. Then based on what he knows about J1, J2 arranges his above or below the first one - this is the essence of the game: you have to try, as a team, to place all the rafters in order increasing, without having first seen the value inscribed on those of others…
After D2, it's D3's turn. And so on. Once the round is completed, J1 may, if he or she wishes, change his chevron. Then we reveal. The chevrons that actually give values in ascending numerical order remain on the table, and those that break the ascending order are removed from the sequence.
A concrete example? Hop! To the question "From 1 to 100, how would you rate the smell of coffee in the morning?" we find the following answers in order: The first chevron, that of Julien, indicates a 3. It starts well! Follow those of Magalie (14), then Simon (25). It looks like we're on our way to doing well! That said, it was without counting on mononc Stéphane, mononc Caribou, who inserted his chevron in 4 th position, with a drawing of a tomato, it looks like, unless it's the number 100? Either way, it breaks the ascending order and it's a point deducted. After the total count, we score 7 points out of a possible 8, and aunt Julie is not proud of mononc Stéphane.
The verdict
We weren't expecting much from Fun Facts , truth be told. Everything seemed at first glance to be an exercise in chance, intuition. If this is at least partially true, the game has nevertheless found a way to seduce us around the table. The same players as in the case of Just One engaged in discussions almost after every question asked. And that's what makes the game interesting, by the way (points, in our opinion, are just one way to gauge our success, ultimately).
The questions, sometimes banal, sometimes more pointed, sometimes deep and existential, gave rise to conversations for us that were sometimes funny, sometimes fiery, sometimes serious. The two oldest teenagers, moreover, even learned some interesting lessons and information about their parents (nothing bad; information that shows that parents, despite their sometimes superior airs, are also human…) .
We are not convinced that the primary purpose of Fun Facts was to generate serious debates or conversations. The rules, again very simple, did not suggest this strange success that the game had with our teenager, as well as our friends and their children. We found ourselves in a state of amazing reflection, in fact.
And that too, in a way, is a funny fact…
- Biz and Mooh
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