Monikers

A lot of party games for large groups have an element of arbitrary voting, which sometimes kills the fun being had. Other games come with a novella for a rule book, slowing down the pick-up time. Monikers is light on rules and moving parts but heavy on fun and amusement. This party game, aimed at adults, is a mix of word association, alternate descriptions, and charades. And there’s a ticking clock, so there’s no time to waste.

Participants are split into two teams, sitting alternatively around the table. The dealer doles out nine subject cards to each player. The subjects range from the names of famous people, phrases, book titles, etc. Most come with a description on the card or illustrations. These are what you will eventually be describing, word associating or miming. Each card has a point value associated with it. The easier to describe items will have fewer points. The harder subjects will have more.

Out of the original nine cards dealt each player reviews and submits six of those cards to a communal deck. In some cases, you might want to target cards with items your team would be familiar with. Or you might want to focus the higher point cards, or you just want to pick the cards you have the best chance at remembering and describing. Once everyone has submitted their contribution, the dealer takes the deck and shuffles the cards. This deck is now the playing deck.

There are three rounds of play. The first round is the alternative description round. The only words out of bounds are the ones in the main subject of the card. The second only allows a one-word description. And the third is charades.

A player has only thirty seconds during their turn to get their teammates to guess as many cards as possible. A player will need to keep a timer ready on their phone. It works best to pass one phone between the two teams as the play advances.

Gameplay ends when either the communal deck is exhausted or when the charades round ends. The points on the cards are then tallied to determine the winner.

The game’s tag line is “a dumb party game that respects your intelligence.” I appreciate the self-deprecating humor there. I wouldn’t use the word dumb for this one though.

There is something to be said about keeping a game simple. Everyone at the table can just enjoy the ride rather than juggle a fist full if rules all night. Not that involved games aren’t fun. There are plenty on the game shelf chock full of rules and fun. Sometimes though you just need a quick pick up to liven up a group.

While the audience does say adults on the game, this recommendation isn’t due to raunchy content. The other night Katharine Hepburn came up for me to describe, in one word no less. I struggled, so I feel like an eight-year-old would lose even more time than I did. But, if you have an eight-year-old who could take that in stride, add he/she into the game.

I prefer Monikers to the Apples to Apples type games. They are both similar in that they are very interactive and boisterous. I’ve had plenty of fun with both games. For me, Monikers is designed to suit a broader range of game players. In the voting type party games, if you are playing with a group of people you don’t know well, you are at a disadvantage from the start. With Monikers, everyone begins with a level playing field and avoids any bruised feelings.

If you’re looking for a good time and a way to stretch your brain cells without doing trivia type games, Monikers is definitely the way to go.