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Players: 4 or more (ages 10+)
Playing Time: 45-60 minutes
If you and your friends are looking for a serious trivia challenge, you might want to test your depth of knowledge with Know It or Blow It, a trivia board game for teams. At the game’s most basic level, teams race to the finish instead of simply racking up point totals. Each team has a playing token, which moves along the game board. The board is made of colored squares, which correspond to a collection of trivia cards. Cards display a subject and multiple answers which apply. Orange cards have 3-4 answers, blue cards have 5-6 answers, and purple cards have 7+ answers. Cards increase in difficulty as you advance on the board. Each answer is worth one point and one space on the board.
During game play, a player from the opposing team draws a colored card, which coordinates with the color of the space your team’s token occupies on the board. This person then reads the card to your team. Each member of your team takes a turn providing answers to the trivia subject. If you guess correctly, the next person on your team attempts an answer until you’ve provided all of the answers on the card. However, if you don’t know an answer, you can say so. This ends your team’s turn, but you retain any points you’ve earned on the question up to that point. If you guess incorrectly, your team gets no points for the round.
After giving up or guessing incorrectly, the opposing team has a chance to guess the remaining answers on the card and receive points for any correct remaining answers which they provide. The first team to reach the Winner Space on the board and correctly identify all the answers on a purple trivia card (7+ answers) is the winner.
Taking turns during game play gives the game a Family Feud feeling. Even though you’re playing together, you have to come up with an answer on your own during each round. This approach can be a good thing because it means that every player gets the opportunity to actively participate each time. It’s also more challenging because, if you’re stumped or unsure, you don’t have the means to collaborate with team members to come up with answers.
The ability to risk your team’s points each round is a nice twist to the standard trivia game. It causes players to think hard before blurting out an answer. Whether you answer correctly or admit that you just don’t know, your team depends on you to keep the points that everyone has earned for the round—no life lines here to save you.
However, there is a bit of an imbalance in the trivia subject material. While the game does include new and old trivia, it doesn’t feel as if it provides enough subjects for the young adult age group. Furthermore, as you break down the trivia categories, you’ll find that the questions are heavily geared at general/pop culture trivia and geography. These aren’t bad topics to include, but the subjects of math, science, sports, and language/literature are extremely underrepresented compared to the others, and that’s a little disappointing. Overall though, Know It or Blow It is a good trivia game. And with some trivia card expansion packs, it has the potential to become a regular on game night.
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