Scattergories

After writing my review of Codenames : Harry Potter my mind turned to Scattergories because I experience a similar feeling of brain-strain when playing.

For those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s an older game that was first published in 1988 and is now sold by Hasbro. Being older doesn’t take away from it being quite challenging though and it’s one we enjoy quite a lot.

Inside the box there’s a multi-sided dice with a letter on each face, an egg timer, a stack of cards listing a variety of categories and a pad of sheets to write your answers on. There’s also some cardboard holders to hide your answer sheet from other players but those are optional. The rules are inside the top of those cardboard holders.

To play, you each take an answer sheet and one of the category cards. There’s multiple copies of each so that everyone can have their own.

Someone rolls the dice and turns over the egg timer. You then get until the timer runs out to write up to three items per category onto your answer sheet. They must start with the letter shown on the dice.

Once the timer runs out you get a point for each valid answer. If you managed three items per category for all twelve categories you’d get 36 points. You can also have answers with multiple words starting with the same letter eg “Pickled Peppers” and that would be worth two points.

It sounds easy, but it’s amazing how blank I find my mind going when I have to think of Three Terms of Measurement starting with the letter L. Litre, Light Year and League are all valid, but when you’re staring at the page they don’t come easily to mind.

Some letters and category combinations are much easier than others. If you roll M you’re have a much easier run than if you roll O. I think the most I’ve ever scored was about 18, most of the time it’s more like the 11 or 12 range and I’m lucky to fill in all the spots. Other’s I’ve played with have mentioned the same problem. You know the answers but trying to remember them under pressure is tough.

Because there’s multiple lists of categories and you could end up with any letter combination with them there’s a lot of replay value in this and there’s almost no setup or teaching time it’s a good one to play with non-gamer friends

It’s a fun and quick filler game that can actually be quite challenging and also frustrating, but in a good way.