Back in January I had posted about the release of Wits and Wagers Family at the NY Toy Fair.

Well I can now say that I’ve played the game, thanks to North Star games sending me a copy to review. Keep in mind that I’ve never played the original, so this review will focus on how the game stands on its own, not how it compares to Wits And Wagers.

Contents of the box:

150 question cards
5 big meeples
5 small meeples
5 dry erase boards and pens
1 dry erase score board
1 answer board
The rules

Gameplay:

The game play for Wits & Wagers Family couldn’t be easier. A question is asked and all the players write down a guess.  These guesses are revealed, and placed in order from smallest to largest (answers are always numeric). Now all the players place their meeples onto the answer they think is correct, or at least the closest to the correct answer.

Points are then awarded as follows:

2 points if you guessed correctly with your large meeple
1 point if you guessed correctly with your small meeple
1 point if you guess the closest to the right answer.

As you can see it’s possible to earn up to 4 points each question.  The beauty of this system is that you don’t need to know the right answer to the question to do well in the game.  No one does.

My Thoughts:

The game is incredibly simple to learn and play, and a ton of fun.  I wouldn’t really play this with anyone younger than 8, but I’m sure there’s some astute 6 year olds that may be an exception to this. My only problem is that some of the questions are TOO easy.  I understand this is a family game, but having a larger spread of questions for different age groups would have been nice. This could be easily fixed, though, with an expansion pack of questions, or even some homebrew questions. I will admit, however, that there were some questions that the adults had a much harder time answering than the kids.

All in all we had a great time with the game.  Sure there’s better family party games out there, but Wits & Wagers Family deserves a spot on every family’s shelf. I may have to pick up the original now that I know how much fun the family edition is.