Book Club and Movie Night - Board Game Review
Allplay Tiny Box series provides gamers with games that are easy to teach and learn, quick to play and cheaply priced. They continue to add games to this collection. Two more of these games were recently provided to Comic Book Yeti and we are happy to provide our thoughts.
BOOK CLUB and MOVIE NIGHT
Type of Game: Timed Cooperative Trivia
Number of Players: 1-10
Age: 7+
Designer: Peter C. Hayward
Art: Sai Beppu
Publisher: Allplay
When Allplay provided Comic Book Yeti with a chance to review Slambo! and For the Emperor, and having enjoyed the quick, fun gameplay of those two games, I took a deeper dive into the rest of the titles in that series. Movies and reading are two hobbies of mine and also of family, so naturally Book Club and Movie Night were two that piqued my interest right away.
Both games are played the exact same way with the only difference being one deals with books and the other deals with movies. (Obviously!) There is a deck of description cards and five are dealt facedown and the rest go back to the box. There are two columns labeled Book Has and Book Doesn't Have. When drawing the first of five cards you read it aloud, for example, "Female Author" and as a team you agree on a book that does have a female author. Let's go with Frankenstein. Draw a new card from the deck, "Character Name in Title" and ask does your book have this. We do! So that card now goes into the Book Doesn't Have column and the team now needs to find a book with a female author that doesn't have a character name in the title. We will pivot to To Kill a Mockingbird. Proceed with the remaining three cards in this way and if you can come up with a book that covers all five description conditions, you win! Sounds easy, but then you add the five minute timer. Still easy? Up the amount of cards and amount of time or ultimate challenge of a ten minute timer and see how many total cards you can get through!
FINAL THOUGHTS
Book Club and Movie Night continue the trend of entertaining Allplay small box games. Although, this is more of an activity than a game. But that's just semantics. Does it mean it's any less entertaining, not at all!
I enjoy trivia and I enjoy trying to better a previous high score. It's fun to collectively think through the descriptions and come up with a movie. I love the moments when a teammate pulls a movie out of thin air with the timer counting down, getting a cheer and high fives. The five minute timer puts pressure on the team and really wipes thoughts from minds. Many rounds off this I've said and heard, "I can't think of anything" or "Why can't I think of a movie!"
A competitve version of this could even be home ruled. Have two teams and each team races to come up with a book. First team that gets a book wins the card. Later cards score more points. Boom, now its competitive instead of cooperative.
Overall, a fun and fast way to fill time between games or as just a sit around the living room activity. A quintessential filler that found it's way to the coffee table drawer rather than the game shelf. Hey, I'm lazy! Now I can just grab it and play a quick round when my team is stinking up the joint. (Looking at all of Philly sports right now!)
_______________________________________________________________
Like what you've just read? Help us keep the Yeti Cave warm! Comic Book Yeti has a Patreon page for anyone who wants to contribute: patreon.com/CryptidCreatorCornerPod
