BURT HOCHBERG says he knows the real reason why so many of us like to play party games: It's a structured environment in which people can enjoy each other's company without being forced to talk to each other.
Hochberg is the editor of Games magazine, which means he plays games even when he's not trying to avoid conversation. He and his colleagues play more than 200 games a year so that they can come up with their "Games 100," an annual pick of the best the industry has to offer.Hochberg is always amazed at how inventive gamemakers are: how they can keep recycling old ideas into variations that give the illusion, at least, of something new.
Indeed, just when you thought no one could come up with yet another party game, recent offerings include more than 100 new ones. More word games. More category games. More trivia. There is even a recycling of the old Pigmania, this one a bovine variation featuring plastic cows.
If you're looking for a party game gift, here are some possibilities:
- "Inklings" (Games magazine's game of the year) - Players each draw a category card with seven items on it. They then write down clues for the items and present them to their teammates in 45 seconds or less. The trick is to use as few letters as possible in the clues. If the category were "kinds of bottles," for example, and the answer were "medicine," a really short clue would be "Rx."
- "Oodles" (Games magazine's best new party game of 1993, and the top seller at local Toys R Us stores) - Players are bombarded with questions whose answers must start with the same letter (example: Yogi's partner and a small hurt; answer: Boo boo.) This is an oral game, with an electric timer, so expect yelling and confusion.
- "Overturn" (Parents' Choice Award of 1993) - A Boggle-like word game consisting of 18 tiles containing four letters each. Nine tiles are randomly chosen and arranged in a 3-by-3 square. Players then try to find words using connected letters spanning at least two tiles (when you find one you place rings over the letters). If your opponent uses any of those letters in a new word, he claims them.
- "Perpetual Notion" (Games magazine's best new family game of the year) - Players get 28 description cards. The first player might lay down a card that says "round." The next player lays down another card that, when used with "round," will describe something. "Bounce," for example. The next player may play "folds" but must have something specific in mind (trampoline, for example). Players keep playing cards until their contribution is challenged.
- "Set" (the Game Keeper's best seller this year) - A card game that tests your powers of observation. Players see 12 cards, then must find sets (three cards on which each of four attributes is either all the same or all different on each card).
- "TriBond" (the Game Keeper's biggest seller of 1992): Players are given three clues (Ted Turner, Dick, Tarzan, for example) and have to come up with the common link (Jane).
And of course there are the classics. Games People Play at the Valley Fair Mall says "How to Host a Murder" is still their top seller. Also doing well there is "The Farming Game," an agrarian "Monopoly."
Best-selling games at other area stores include "Taboo," "Gestures," "Scattergories," "Songburst," "Pictionary," "Claymania" ("Pictionary" for the sculpturally gifted), "Sequence," "Abalone" and "Mind Trap."