Six games enter.  Only one game wins.

I brought six games to Thanksgiving this year to play with my ten-year-old child, my partner, and my seventy-year-old parents.  Over the course of a few days, they learned and played each game.  At the end of the trip, out of curiosity, I asked them to each rank the games, awarding 5 points to their favorite, 4 points to their second favorite, 3 points to their third favorite, then 2 points, 1 point, and zero points to their least favorite.  The results were decisive.  The winner is clear.  And it’s definitely not Belratti.

(6) Belratti – 3 points

[Nobody’s favorite]

Alas, one of my favorite picture-guessing party games did not fare well with my family.  I did not vote in these standings. I suppose I should just stick to the tried-and-true Dixit or its spiritual successor Mysterium without trying to innovate with this slightly different 2018 card game.  The small box of Belratti made it easier to fit in my suitcase, and I like the twist it adds of alternating roles between submitting cards and guessing pictures.  It’s still not clear to me why family members bounced so hard off this one, when games like Dixit have been a huge hit over the years.  My suspicion is that the lack of appealing artwork makes this much less interesting to folks than Dixit or Mysterium, and perhaps the guessing feels a bit more random and haphazard given the lack of details in the images.  Nonetheless, I’m still a big fan of Belratti, its portability, and the genre of silly card image guessing games across the board.

What games came in fifth through first? Read on to find out…

(5) Things in Rings – 4 points

[Child’s third favorite]

I’m biased to personally like all 6 games that I chose to bring from my 500ish game collection, but this result is easily the least surprising to me because Things in Rings can be very tough to parse and therefore feel frustrating to various audiences.  I enjoy the challenge, and I like seeing the Venn diagram unfold, particularly with the cooperative variant, but I think that most folks found it effectively random and maddening.  I still love the expansive game that this tiny box packs, but I’d be cautious about recommending it to many groups based on my results showing it to people to date.

(4) Pictomania – 11 points

[Grandpa’s second favorite, Partner’s second favorite]

Vlaada Chvatil’s brilliant Pictomania just missed making it into the Top Three, probably because everyone seems to just barely prefer when I bring Doodle Dash because it lacks the slightly convoluted scoring system of Pictomania and the simultaneous drawing/guessing frenetic pace of Pictomania.  Personally, Pictomania is my favorite drawing game by far, but I do think it requires folks to pay more attention and to “lean in” a bit more than they might expect for a silly party drawing game.  The underlying design of this game is just so impressive to me, and I’m glad it did at least decently well in this Thanksgiving Game Battle Royale, even if I’ll probably stick to bringing Doodle Dash in the future.

(3) The Gang – 12 points

[Child’s favorite, Grandma’s second favorite]

The Gang is easily my ten-year-old’s favorite game of the bunch and one of his favorites of all-time these days, up there with the likes of Doodle Dash, Quacks, and Illusion.  As usual, the group thought that the game would be absurdly hard based on the rules explanation, and folks were very pleasantly surprised by how well we managed to do, which I think is a normal outcome and part of the joy of actually playing this game and seeing it unfold.  The Gang is ultimately such a clever concept that works remarkably well and feels so intuitive.  I actually thought going in that it might be the group’s collective favorite from the long weekend, but the child’s enthusiasm wasn’t sufficiently infectious and it wasn’t meant to be.

(2) Werewords – 13 points

[Grandpa’s favorite, Grandma’s third favorite, Partner’s third favorite]

Instead, Werewords just edged out The Gang based on being reasonably well-liked across the board.  As a family that grew up playing “20 Questions” on long car rides, I’m not surprised that Werewords did well, and I’m also not surprised that most people would probably have preferred to just play good ol’ 20 Questions rather than Werewords with the werewolf and seer roles complicating things.  Folks seemed fairly unsure about how to go about playing as a werewolf or seer, but I suppose they enjoyed the quick, simple, and somewhat familiar gameplay nonetheless.

(1) Just One – 17 points

[Grandma’s favorite, Partner’s favorite, Child’s second favorite, Grandpa’s third favorite]

The dominant favorite was easily and decisively Just One.  The irony is that this is my least favorite game of the bunch, but it’s been such a hit with so many groups that I was sure it would be well received.  I personally enjoy the card play of The Gang, the word play of Werewords, the drawing of Pictomania, the picture guessing of Belratti, and even the frustrating Venn diagrams of Things in Rings so much more.  The group just got a kick out of coming up with clues, seeing everyone else’s clues, the agony of having your clue duplicated, and then discussing the cleverness and ridiculousness of various clues after the guess was made.  In thinking back, I can see the appeal, but I have so many other party games I’d rather play personally – not just everything else listed above, but also the real classics of Dixit and Wits & Wagers, plus card games like Timeline, Pick-a-Pig, or Illusion, and of course dexterity games like Men at Work, Hamsterolle, or Tok Tok Woodman.  Next year, I’ll probably revert to bringing Dixit and Wits & Wagers, rather than subjecting everyone to a Thanksgiving Game Battle Royale, but I’m thankful to have had the chance to teach a bunch of great games and to see how they’re received.

What games did you play over the Thanksgiving holiday and how did they go over?