Wits And Wagers
by North Star Games
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Toys and Games Reviews of Wits And Wagers
Customer Review: Well worth the buy!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this game for our New Years get together. I was drawn to what it said on the bottom of the box, "Not a trivia buff? It doesn't matter!" It explained the basics of how it was played, and I thought it was a brilliant idea. I hate playing Trivial Pursuit because I am terrible at it. It's no fun when you literally have no idea and you have an empty pie, not even one single piece, when the winner is full.
This is interesting though because even if you don't know the answer, you can bet on the person who you think would know (note that the following questions are only examples and I don't if they're even in the game or not). Got a football fan playing? Then they probably know what year a certain quarterback made a winning pass at the Super Bowl. Got a classic movie fan? Then they probably know what year the first Oscar nominated color movie premiered. You get the idea, so you bet on them... if you think they're being honest.
We had a great time! It really was a lot of fun and I honestly don't see why there can't be a user created variation where you don't need at least six people. In fact, I see no reason why only two people can't play. Just make it double or nothing.
That said, we did have a couple of problems. I don't know how they did the math, but there were not enough chips for us to play. Now the funny part about this was that we only had five players, so there should have been more than enough for all of us. It was odd that we ran out on our first game. We went back over the instructions, looking for a mistake in our play. All of us agreed though, we were playing it right.
We made up for that though by pulling out some white poker chips and using them as a x5 blue chip. Once we did that, we were fine. If you don't have any chips, there is no need to buy some because you can just use pennies, dried beans or whatever else you have on hand. It's really not that big of a deal, but just something the company needs to rethink.
The one that got me though, was that a dry erase marker was dried out because the end tip was missing, which was strange to say the least. Those aren't cheap. We ended up just sharing, but there is a timer issue here, which we had to adjust. Alternatively, we could just use a sheet of paper, but then there's the whole tree thing.
I did email them and report the issue. We'll see if they respond and if so, I'll post a comment in response to my own post. If it's not there, then they never responded.
OVERALL:
Overall it was worth the buy in my opinion. We had a great time and though we had to make a few modifications for a few insufficient, it wasn't that big of a deal really. The important part was that our New Years was memorable and we had a great time ringing it in!
Customer Review: Much to my surprise, I had a blast...
Summary: 5 Stars
I love board games. But I hate learning new board games. So when our friends got out this new game to introduce to us, I agreed rather begrudgingly. I'm glad I did because we had an absolute blast!!
I won't describe the nitty-gritty details of the game, as others have done that well. I'll just describe why I liked it. First, I enjoy games where skill or intelligence actually help you win, rather than games of completely arbitrary chance (like Apples to Apples, the dumbest game ever invented). Wits and Wagers is a trivia game that asks very interesting questions about a wide array of fascinating topics, each with a numerical answer. I really enjoyed the diversity of the trivia questions, which were challenging enough that we hardly got any exactly right but reasonable enough to allow for some close and intelligent guesses.
I also appreciated that the length of a game was rather quick, probably 15-20 minutes. We actually played five complete games during one evening, though we could have easily played fewer if our schedules demanded it and we could have played a few more if it wasn't so late. Though I love an epic game of Trivial Pursuit when I can find friends willing to play, the more digestible game-length of Wits and Wages makes it appropriate for more groupings of people and different settings (and doesn't necessitate the painful act of quitting in the middle of a game!!).
Finally, I appreciated the wager part of the game. As the name implies, this game is really two-fold, and answering trivia questions (Wits) is only phase one. Then, players place bets (Wagers) to decide which of the answers is closest to the correct answer. This extra challenge added more complexity to the entire gaming experience.
Honestly, it took me a little bit to figure out the wagering component of the game. (I kept wagering in the wrong direction, thereby losing chips even when I knew the answer.) But once I figured it out (and the confusion was my fault, not a fault of the game), I insisted that we keep playing because I was having so much fun. I'm glad that our friends introduced us to "Wits and Wagers," and I hope to play it again sometime soon.
Customer Review: Gambling/Chance + Trivia = UNIQUE FUN!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Whether you're a Texas Hold 'Em fan or a trivia guru, this game is for you! Uniquely bringing together two very different types of game, Wits and Wagers, I must admit, exceeded my expectations...
I received the game for Christmas from my Grandma, who was very excited about it. I took one look at the betting mat, and said to myself: "Great--another lucky game" (I prefer strategy and competitive games like Monopoly, which you CAN play FAST by the way!). But since my grandparents had purchased it for me, we played it the very next day with them. It was a BLAST! Like I said, whether you enjoy betting/gambling, trivia, or just plain LUCK! It's all there! How it works is a piece of trivia is read allowed (ie: what percent of women in the United States are left-handed) and then everyone bets on the number. Every guess is a number. Of course no one REALLY knows the exact answer (unless they just got through reading statistics online) but it's a lot of fun to place your guess within a minute. Ooh and aaahh over all the different guesses (and laugh a lot at the really ridiculous ones!) and then BET on which guess you think is CORRECT. After this, the real answer is read aloud and if you bet on either the exact right answer, or the number closest to but not over the right answer, you win even more mula! If you guessed and bet wrong, you lose whatever you bet.
And if you're not a trivia freak or a wildly lucky gambler--but maybe just enjoy being in charge, being a "host" and reading aloud, then just take the job of reading the questions aloud, making sure no one goes over time in their guesses or betting (ie: keep an eye on the included 30 second glass), and have the fun of everyone waiting breathlessly for you to read the right answer and make some of the players so rich there aren't enough chips, and some broke! I personally enjoy the job of just reading the card and being sure no one goes overtime, as I am a terrible guesser :)
the point is, there is something in this game for everyone, and I HIGHLY recommend it. Cheers to Northstar Games!!
Customer Review: Not much fun - what's with all the positive reviews?
Summary: 2 Stars
I DON'T UNDERSTAND ALL THE HIGH REVIEWS!
I purchased this game after seeing a review on a blog and reading all the positive reviews here on Amazon. However, after playing it twice with friends, and looking through the reviews, I'm convinced that the reviews are NOT all genuine. (As of this writing, my review is the ONLY one that's not 4- or 5- stars.... how is this possible?)
ALL THE ANSWERS MUST BE NUMBERS. BORING!
I thought this game would require some "Wit" and creativity (hence the name!), but the questions are uninspiring and uncreative trivia questions ("What's the population of Montana?" or "How tall is the world's tallest volcano?") that allow for basic numerical guesses with absolutely no creativity. I thought the game would ask for creative answers that we could make up on the spot and have fun with, but no, it's just a number you have to write down on a little dry-erase card.
THE WAGERS AREN'T ALL THAT EXCITING, EITHER.
The second part of the game is placing a bet on which answers you think are correct. The betting isn't all that interesting, and although you can move your bets around based on what other people are doing, it doesn't really get all that exciting.
We spent more time distributing and collecting the chips than we did actually betting.
MORE PLAYERS IS MORE FUN, BUT ONLY MARGINALLY
The first time we played was with four players, and it was awful. Playing with seven players helped, but only marginally.
This games is uninspiring, not much fun or witty, and not challenging or exciting in the least. I'm completely disappointed, and have no desire to ever play this game again.
TRY APPLES TO APPLES INSTEAD!
We put this game away and played Apples to Apples instead and had a much better time.
Customer Review: A Family Favorite
Summary: 5 Stars
Game playing is a strong tradition in my extended family. In my immediate family, although we're definitely not hard-core board game geeks, we do own a modest number of board/card games, ranging from traditional games like backgammon and chess, to mainstream classics like Stratego and Mille Bornes, to newer titles that may be less well-known outside the game world, like Carcassonne and TransAmerica. We play and enjoy games from all these genres regularly at home.
At our family's Christmas gathering last year, my cousin (who *is* enough of a board game fanatic to raise the whole family average several notches) introduced us to Wits & Wagers. I think we played it several times every day that we were all together, and I bought a copy for my household soon afterward.
We play W&W at home now every couple of weeks, and the adults and kids both like it a lot. Although it's a "trivia" game, you don't need to know a lot of trivia: every player answers every question and you earn points by guessing which player's answer is closest to correct. It plays very quickly, as well - an average game for us takes about 20 minutes. The questions are obscure enough that no player is likely to know all the answers, yet approachable and interesting enough to appeal to a wide range of players.
For anyone who already owns a copy of W&W (or is considering it and wonders if they might "wear out" the questions), there's a bit of good news: the publisher has released the first in a series of expansion packs containing new questions.