November 27, 2017

In Or Out

Remember the feeling of taking a standardized test and facing a math problem requiring skills you never learned or have long forgotten? Remember the relief when you could eliminate a couple of the possibilities? Better to have a 50-50 shot than a 25% one. I always thought you should get credit for what you know is wrong.

If you can identify with these sentiments, do I have a trivia game for you! The premise and gameplay of In or Out couldn't be simpler. You are given 12 cards and a category, and all you have to do is commit to whether an alternative is IN (i.e., fits the category) or OUT (doesn't belong in the category).

Here’s how a round works. Each category is numbered and you place all 12 cards face up on the table. Each number is associated with a category, such as “Real Places.” One by one, players scan all 12 cards to look for one that is clearly IN or OUT. For example, the first player might feel strongly that Camelot is not a real place, so she would say “Out” and flip the card over and find out immediately that she was right. As a reward, she receives a green chip. If you are wrong, you get a red chip. Play continues until the alternatives get harder (is Andromeda a real place?) and you’ve exhausted all the cards in the category.

Most trivia games have lousy gameplay (everyone I know has long abandoned anything but the questions and answers when playing Trivial Pursuit), but the mechanics of In or Out add appeal. There is a nice variety of categories and a wide range of difficulty. In or Out is a terrific party game for the whole family, and fun for two to six players.