North Star Games Review & Giveaway – 2 Winners – Ends 11/08 – US & Canada

If you’re looking for a great gift the whole family can enjoy, then consider picking up a great board game! I have fond holiday memories of receiving games on Christmas morning and playing them with my family later in the day as we relaxed after the family meal. And two lucky readers will each win a board game from North Star Games in order to do just that, so read on!

As you may recall, I recently hosted a fun “Hummus & Board Games” party. Friends and family joined me for an afternoon of snacks and fun where we played two great games from North Star Games: “Say Anything” and “Wits And Wagers Party”. Most of my friends were unfamiliar with the games, but one of them immediately said: “Oh, Say Anything, I want to play that one! I read that it was really fun.” So that’s the game we started with!

In “Say Anything”, each player gets a dry-erase board, marker, and two chips. Every player takes a turn puling a “Question card”, which they read out to the other players. Each person then writes down an answer and unveils their cards when everyone is ready. The player who read out the question card then uses a spinner to secretly select which answer was their favorite. The other players try to guess what answer will be their favorite, and place their chips on the card they suspect as a bet. The spinner is then revealed and each player gets points according to what card they bet on. Naturally, the player with the most points at the end is the winner.

This game was quite fun and is good for generating laughs and conversation. Each question can be interpreted a number of ways, leading to answers ranging from serious to funny. For example, in this round the question was “What was the most important invention of the last 100 years?”. The answers above range from “Internet” to “Transistor” to “The automobile” and – wait for it – “Hummus”, since we were having a hummus party. 😉

Although we had 5 players, we decided to only have 4 people write answers at a time. This is because of the voting element – we decided it would be too tricky to have the person asking the question also write an answer as indicated by the rules, since obviously their own answer is going to be their favorite. Or at least it seemed evident it would be that way in our group, anyway. 😉 So we just modified it to have the question asker only judge questions and not write their own, which worked well. ETA: Apparently, we are much better at coming up with game strategy than we are at actually reading the rules! Upon re-reading the directions, it turns out that the person asking the question was never supposed to write down an answer in the first place! So, by making up our own way of playing it…we were actually just playing it correctly! Reading comprehension fail on our part – haha!
We had a lot of laughs with this game, which led to a lot of funny stories and jokes. Definitely a good party game!

Next, we played Wits And Wagers Party. The gameplay on this is actually quite similar to Say Anything – once again, we have dry erase boards and pens, chips, and questions cards. But instead of being phrases, this game is numerical. One player serves as question asker for the duration of the game, reading out trivia-style questions such as “How many bathrooms are in the White House?”. Each player then writes down their guess on their dry erase card, which are then lined up in numerical order. Each player then puts a chip on the answer that they suspect is the closest to the real answer. The question asker then flips over the card for the answer; each player then receives poker chips for each correct bet. The winning number is based on the closest to the actual answer without going over – for example, if the answer is 40, then a player who wrote 42 would not win that round while the player who guessed 32 would. The player who writes the closest guess receives poker chips, as well as the players who betted on their answers.

Gameplay continues for 7 rounds, with the last round having a twist. For the first 6 rounds, players may only bet 2 chips each; during the 7th round, players have the option of betting all of their chips on an answer if they so desire. My BFF had complained that she had no idea what any of the answers were during the game and said “There is no way I could possibly win this game!”. Just for laughs, she wrote a totally random guess and bet all of her own chips on her own card, which she was certain was wrong; she figured that she would lose in style, at least. Well guess what? Her answer ended up being the right one, so she DOUBLED all of chips and won in a huge landslide! It was hilarious and totally unexpected. The game was a hit with the guests – the only complaint they had was that one of the dry-erase pens in the “Wits & Wagers” box didn’t work. I really enjoyed both of these games and I’m looking forward to playing them again!

Say Anything is available at Target, Toys R US, and on Amazon, while Wits & Wagers Party is available at Barnes & Noble, Walmart, most specialty toy stores and Amazon. Click here to visit the official website for more purchasing info!

North Star Games are one of the sponsors in tonight’s Twitter party from 6-7 PM PST and will be giving away another copy of Wits & Wagers Party, so don’t miss out! Click here to RSVP now!

TWO lucky Contest Corner readers will each with a board game from North Star Games! One winner will receive Say Anything, and one winner will receive Wits And Wagers Party. Winners of each game will be determined at random. Entry is easy via the Rafflecopter form below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rules, regulations, and other important stuff: Giveaway is open to residents of the United States and Canada, 18+, and ends on November 8th 2012 at 12:01 AM EST. Winner will be chosen through Rafflecopter the same day and notified via email. Winner has 48 hours to respond to our notification email, or a new winner will be chosen in their place. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. We hereby release Facebook of any liability. By entering this giveaway, you are releasing Facebook and understand that you are providing information to Contest Corner and the giveaway sponsor, not Facebook. Contest Corner is not responsible for late entries or entries lost due to technical malfunctions. Please see our Privacy Policy and Disclosure for further details on our site’s policies. A sample was received to facilitate this review.