We just got back from BGG.Spring, and at one point during one of our late night crunchy games, something funny happened. I thought of a quip to throw out as a quick joke, but before I got it out, someone else said something similar. Everybody laughed. My quip died on my tongue because the same general idea had already been put out there.
I was worried that’s the way I would feel about playing Blob Party at the convention and all this week.
What is Blog Party? It’s a brand new party game published by WizKids from designer Pam Willis, whose ludography shows a keen sense in what makes a good party game. A well crafted party game should not feel crafted, it should seem like it has always existed. It has to have a very low rules overhead and minimalist components. It has to create laugh out loud moments. And it has to be fun.
Those are tall orders for any designer to complete. I don’t envy those that are professional party game designers, because it must be nerve wracking to think that small but with such wide ranging effects.
Lucky for me, it wasn’t the party game aspect that attracted me first. It was the production of Blob Party that got me intrigued in playing it. We should probably talk a little bit about how it plays before we answer That Question.
At the start of the game, each player is handed a dry erase marker and a brightly colored dry erase board with a friendly neighborhood blob festooned across one corner. Then, players are handed a small chunk of a doughy like substance to which they promptly and with as many giggles and snarky comments as possible, attach a “googly eye” to their piece of dough. (I doubt that any other rules recap I give in any other blog post will ever start like this one.)
That’s the set up. It’s time to play. The leader holds two decks of cards, one marked “Categories” and one marked “Words”. You just cannot get simpler commentary than those, right? When everyone is ready, the leader flips over the first of seven rounds of cards for everyone to see.
The two cars are placed right next to each other. As you have guessed, the first deck shows off different general categories of words like music or movies or technology, while the second deck gives players specific words not necessarily related to the first deck, noun words like like basketball or water.
The trick? Each player in the game has to come up with a secret word that connect these two words together, or reminds the players of a particular word. Let’s say that the general word is “occupations” and the specific word is “water”. Players could write down “mermaid” or “tanker man” or “sailor”, But they’d probably write down “lifeguard”, right? (you can see I’m still a little salty after our game!).
Once everyone has revealed their choices, all of the people who had the same answer form a “blob” by combining their googly eye blobs together. The goal is to get everyone to all say the same answer within seven rounds, but the offerings get smaller and smaller as the googlies combine during the game. Remember, we only have seven rounds to become a MegaBlob, and that dilemma certainly deserves an exclamation point or two!
As you can see, this is a pretty darn good idea for a party game. It’s simple. It’s got the toy factor of googly eyes and dough, and the thrill of joining the Blob Party or the raspberry of being stuck the odd person out.
But something worried me when I looked at the back of the box and read the instructions. Just One and Green Team Wins were my favorite party games of their respective years. Are these games that much different? Are they all worth a place on the hallowed Gumbo Kallax of Awesome Party Games?
If you have not played those games, here’s a quick primer so you can help me judge. In Just One, a cooperative party game, each player takes a turn trying to guess what a word is from up to seven different clues given by the other players. The catch is that if any player uses the exact same clue, those clues are NOT shown to the guesser. The conceit of the game is trying to come up with a clue that would remind the guesser about the secret word without being so obvious that the clue is cancelled because everyone else used it.
In Green Team Wins, a competitive party game, the group of players is given three different types of questions: picking one thing over another thing, or multiple choice questions or filling in the blank. Players secretly write down their answer and then every person in the majority when the choices are revealed “joins the green team” and scores points. Getting on and staying on the green team is the key to winning. I just love being the moderator, hyping up the questions and the majority answers and throwing shade at the Orange team.
You can see the parallels between those two games and Blob Party. But in my mind, they are not the same. They are different enough for me to own all three. Blob Party is an excellent idea for a game because it combines the groupthink in Green Team Wins with the cooperative nature of Just One.
And before you throw your play-doh at me, I know I am supposed to judge each game on its own merit. And I know that most party games are little quips, little kernels of ideas, improv exercises, or just plain something we’ve done for years around the hearth but gamified.
But come on. We all have limited shelf space (well except for Jason Levine, I hear). It’s got to be a consideration in our minds what value Blob Party brings to our game room. In Blob Party’s favor, the rules are dead simple and the game only takes about 10-15 minutes, which is just perfect for those party game nights with family who aren’t into playing ninety minute euros all night. (Here is where I will not brag that on one of our plays, the game only lasted two minutes as we all got the same answer on the first set of questions. Because that would be conduct unbecoming of a gamer.)
Luckily for me, the decision has been made easier because Blog Party has been able to create moments where everybody laughs or groans in just fifteen to thirty minutes. With a game of this length and depth, it’s hard to play just one round and much easier to play a few games back-to-back, especially at the end of the game night. How quickly can you and your friends mind-meld the answers? How much will you struggle to get the same concept to a clue? How many times will someone’s outrageous answer (probably done on purpose) stop the game while everybody laughs?
I’m sold, for now. Blob Party is sticking around for a while. I definitely want to take it to Chuck Con as a brief respite from all the euro goodness we will be playing hour after hour. It will be a good way to recharge the batteries. And I can also see it working at family gatherings like our big camping trip to North Carolina this summer. It might even work well with our board game club at the local high school, although that information is months away.
So I guess in the end, Blob Party is not the quip that died on my tongue. Instead, it’s that follow up to the joke that someone else told, one that complements rather than competes with the original joke. Blob Party is the “Yes, and….” improv sequence to the other games in my party game collection.
And that’s all right with me this week. Let’s check back with each other after the summer is over, okay?
Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo
A complimentary copy of the game was provided by the publisher.
Board Game Gumbo 
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