iMAgiNiff Game

Players write their name on segments around the game board. If fewer than eight people play, they add the names of people they all know--or a public figure or character with whom they are familiar. With each turn, a player rolls the dice and moves left or right along the name segments. The name that player lands on becomes the subject of the next "imagine if" question. Scoring depends on how many players choose the same response. Those who win a point for their response get to progress a space toward the final goal. Under certain circumstances, a player can attempt to get an extra point by attempting to match just one other player's response. This twist provides an interesting opportunity to find out whether you and your spouse/best friend/child/etc. really think alike.

A big part of the fun is getting a chance to playfully pick on fellow players by voting on what you think they would do in certain situations or what phrase best describes them. Some of the options are dead on and truly hilarious!

Discovering how friends and family see you sometimes requires a good sense of humor. For instance, when my name came up, the question was, "Imagine if a doctor told XXX that she needed more exercise, what would she do?" My answer: yoga. Favorite answer: Get a second opinion! How embarassing to be so accurately pegged!

As another reviewer mentioned, some potential responses can involve innuendo. (No questions are overtly dirty--just the minds playing the game.) Even when you try to maintain a certain sense of decorum, sometimes it's just impossible. Once, a friend who very openly complains that her husband is not sufficiently attentive in the bedroom was the subject of a question. The question was "Imagine if XXX was a song, what song would she be?" The second choice was "I Can't Get No Satisfaction." Who knows what the other options were--we were doubled over laughing. I'm not sure how many of the kid players understood why we thought this was so funny, but the vote was unanimous.

Speaking of ages, the youngest player that I think we have successfully involved was 10 years old. Younger players can understand some questions, such as "Imagine if XXX were a vehicle, what would he be? A sports car. A pickup. A Bug. etc." But references to movies, songs, history and other cultural events would be over younger players' heads.

In essence, the game works like this: The players write on the board using nonpermanent markers the names of all the players, plus enough names of other friends, family members or celebrities to round out the total. Then each round players take turn rolling a die to see which of these persons is the subject of that round's question.

The questions are of various types, but a typical one might read as follows: "Imaginiff Kate (insert the person's name here) was a cartoon character. Which one would she be? (a) Charlie Brown. (b) Linus. (c) Lucy. (d) Snoopy. (e) Schroeder." The players -- including the subject of the question -- secretly write down their answers, and the consensus majority/plurality each get a point. Thus, the aim in Imaginiff is to be "right" the most often -- but what is right? The answer which the most players agree on. Thus, the game is a good one for fostering conversation and humor; and is a fine selection for playing with people who tend to be unpleasantly hypercompetitive in other types of game.

Imaginiff tends to elicit lots of laughter as people are compared or analogized to things in surprising ways. It can be especially fun when the subject of the question indignantly thinks that s/he fits one answer (usually the "good" or "safe" one), while the rest of the players outvote him/her by selecting a more generally-perceived (i.e. "funny") one.

Questions occasionally get slightly racy ("Imaginiff Joe was a crime... (b) indecent exposure") and in certain crowds permit a healthy amount of innuendo, but never go so far that families should be afraid to play the game together. In this respect, it is a far cry from, say, Zobmondo, which can be a fun game but is not at all the right sort of thing for the 8-14 year olds. Imaginiff is good family fun.

Unfortunately, Buffalo Games (formerly known as Flying Buffalo Games, I think) is quite a small shop and evidently unable to keep up the production volume required to meet demand on this game. If it's in stock, pick it up today or you might have to wait a long time to see it again!