Things in Rings

Designer: Peter Hayward
Artist: Snow Conrad

Publisher: allplay
Players: 2-6
Age: 6+
Time: 20 minutes
Review copy provided by allplay
Reviewed by Jonathan Franklin (played 7-8 times)

Things in Rings is the sort of party game I like. It is clever and leaves room for creativity. The gameplay is snappy and the post-game discussions can be as fun as the game itself.

Before we start, I must ask, “How do you feel about Venn diagrams?” Did you ever ponder whether something salty and sweet, is also salty or sweet? Can something be tall to an ant and short to a giraffe? If so, this is the game for you.

Things in Rings uses red, yellow, and blue strings made into loops, When laid on top of each other and somewhat offset, they make seven zones, a center, three petals, and three parts that complete the circles. There is a rule for each color. Let’s start with a simpler example than those in the game.

Assume Red is True if the word has an A in it
Assume Yellow is True if the word has a B in it
Assume Blue is True if the word has a C in it

The word APPLE goes in the red ring, but not the yellow or blue ones because it has an A, but no B or C.

The word BAT goes in the red and yellow rings, but not the blue one because it has an A and a B, but not a C.

The word CAB goes in the very middle where the three rings intersect because it has an A, a B, and a C.

The word DOG goes outside all the rings because it does not have an A or a B or a C.

Now you understand the basic idea of the game, so we can add the next layer.

In Things in Rings, you don’t know the rules but another player does. Your job is not necessarily to figure out the rules but to get rid of your cards with words on them. Underneath it all, Things in Rings is a shedding game, just like Timeline. You win the game by placing the most cards where they correctly belong so you run out of cards first. When you place a card in the right zone, the person who knows the rules says so and you get to go again. When you place a card in the wrong zone, the player who knows the rules moves it to the correct location and you have to draw a new card.

Things in Rings comes with hundreds of cards, all nouns/things with cute Seussian drawings and bright colors. They are fun to look at and I appreciate that they are not just words, which they very easily could have been. The pictures are important for another reason. The pictures help refine the word. If I have a card that says IRON, it could be an iron bar, an iron for flattening clothes, or a piece of golf equipment. Having the iron depicted helps the players have a meeting of the minds as to what the card refers to.

Knowing what the card refers to is essential to the success of the game because the person who knows the rules has to judge where each card belongs. Going back to the example above, the three rules in Things in Rings relate to specific aspects of the card.

Yellow relates to the word itself, such as “Has a K” Truck has a K and Car does not.

Blue relates to a physical attribute of the thing, such as “Melts” Ice cream melts and milk does not. There are no philosophical concepts on the cards, so you need not decide if greed melts or if sloth is flammable.

Red relates to context which is the broadest of all and defined by the game as ‘About the position or use of the object in society’ Is the item a time-saver? Does it come in groups? Would you find it in a home?

Drawing a random card out of the box, I have the card Hoverboard. It is floating over grass. Hoverboard does not have a K. Hoverboards do not melt as far as I know. Is a Hoverboard a time-saver? Compared to walking, yes. Compared to driving, no. We had quite a few situations of Knower (the player who knows the rules) Angst. Hemming and hawing, apologizing in advance, and placing a card so part of it is in the circle and the other part is outside of it are all examples of Knower Angst.

This game rises and falls on the group’s feelings about the Knower being ‘correct’. If you can handle that plastic is something found in the ocean (or not), you will be fine. If you feel there is an answer and that the Knower got it wrong, I would steer clear of this game.

Second, if you feel deduction and induction games should be based on who can deduce or induce the rule first, this might not be the game for you. We have had plays where someone sees lots of cards in a single zone, plays their cards to that zone, and wins without having any clue what the rules were. Remember at the start that I called this a party game? It is intended as such and if you care more about winning than laughing, I’d suggest you look elsewhere.

For me, it was a fun game that tended not to outstay its welcome, but that it does not eliminate my love for Zendo and I acknowledge that they don’t even cover the same turf. In a way, Things in Rings is more about playing the odds than inducing the harder rules. Would you consider a mermaid alive? Are fictional creatures alive? Are mermaid fictional creatures? Are any of us alive, or is this just a simulation? If you can handle Schroedinger’s Box, you can handle Things in Rings.

Can you think of something that is unambiguously all three of these?

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers:

Dale Yu: This is a party game that doesn’t read well but turns out to be quite fun in practice. The description of the game really makes it seem like a dry and thinky game – but it turns out that there is a lot of creative thinking to do to try to shed those cards from your hand.  It’s definitely a game that leads to lots of laughing and memorable moments.  It’s definitely the sort of game though that you have to be there to enjoy the ride… you can’t take it too seriously as there will definitely be points in every game that the Knower just has to make a judgement call; and everyone just has to live with it.

Josiah Fiscus: The components provide you the option to do a triple Venn diagram, but even doing a double proved mentally taxing. Not just on the players who can inadvertently be led down the wrong path, but even to the knower, who often struggled with the subjective nature of the categories. There are good ideas here, but ultimately, this game ends up being the poster child for “not as much fun as it sounds”.

Nathan Beeler: This came to me as a variant on the brilliant but slightly flawed Encyclopaedist (2006), a game I have only played virtually or with home-brewed components (but I’ve played it a lot). The biggest flaw in the original is that it pretty much requires exactly three people. We have tried more, but the holes in the Venn diagram get a little small, practically speaking. And like Time’s Up compared to the parlour games it was based on (e.g. Celebrities), Things in Rings would use pre-printed content as a selling point for those people who don’t want to have to come up with their own categories, as you do in Encyclopaedist. All well and good–there’s a time and a place for content creation, which I prefer but I recognize not everyone does. Maybe this game could be the magic bullet to introduce a little party game idea to the masses?

I don’t think so, it turns out. While it does solve or or at least address those issues, it introduces one that is much worse to me: the fuzzy categories. In the original, the game hinges on how difficult it is to figure out the other players’ categories. Make them too easy or too hard and the game just isn’t fun. Things in Rings takes that bug and tries to make it a feature. Most of the time you couldn’t possibly figure out exactly what the non-word based categories are because the judge is making constant judgement calls. Does a Kangaroo float? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure whichever way I answer that it’s not going to help you figure out the category. So the game becomes about gut feelings. That’s fine, and people can certainly have fun doing that. But it ultimately removes that elusive a-ha moment that Encyclopaedist provides with nearly every game when you DO figure out what a hidden category is. In short, the new version is more accessible and far less satisfying.

Tery N: I was fully prepared to hate this game. When my husband picked it up at our localish game store and announce he was buying it I said “Really? A game about Venn Diagrams? Sounds like work”. He was not deterred. When we started reading the rules I thought it sounded like the type of party game I don’t like, where there’s a lot of reliance on group think and people potentially making decisions that are going to lead to debate and disgruntlement. However, once we started playing I had to admit it was pretty fun. There are definitely some people I probably wouldn’t want to play this with; if you’re going to be bitter about the Knower’s choices, which sometimes might not seem perfect, you will ruin the fun. If you go with the flow and enjoy the game I am happy to play it with you.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Jonathan F., Tery N, Dale Y,  Alan H, Steph H
• Neutral. Nathan Beeler, Josiah Fiscus
• Not for me…