Game 123: Catch Phrase

 

Yesterday morning I was doing some cleaning in the game room, and I saw this game on the shelf and thought rather sadly, "Well, it's going to be LONG time before that game ever gets played again!"  It's a party game that we usually play with a large group, and given the current pandemic that's not something that's going to be happening any time soon!  Later that evening I suggested we play Upwords (since I don't have any games starting with a U on this blog yet).  David suggested Karuba ("that jungle game").  Others were suggested, and then someone said, "Why don't we play Catch Phrase?  I bet we can do that with four people."  I couldn't believe it.  We hadn't played this in months - probably not for well over a year - and I'd been thinking just that morning that we wouldn't be playing it any time soon.  You can tell by the condition of the box that it has been pulled off the shelf and played a lot in the past.  It's a light, fun party game that often results in laughter, and a little bit of exasperation sometimes.  It's one of many games of this type in which you have to describe (with certain restrictions) a word to other players and have them guess what the word is.

We pushed the couches into face-to-face position, and off we went.  We had so much fun that we played 3 rounds, swapping out teams partway through.
One element of this game is the time restriction that basically makes it like a "Hot Potato" situation.  It isn't about who guesses the most words but rather who is left holding the device when the timer goes off.  
There's a button on the side of the device that advances the disk so that the next word is showing in the viewer, and the game comes with lots of word disks so play can go on and on.
The game comes with a timer button, word disks, the word viewer, and a score-keeping board.

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