mclii

Today (technically yesterday since it's past midnight), I had the great pleasure of stopping by Steep & Brew on State Street to "test drive" the game, Cineplexity. Steep & Brew hosted the world premier of the game, with the game's creators on hand. Cineplexity is being released later this year (Summer 2006), through Out of the Box Publishing. One of the game's creators was a childhood friend of mine, JM, and we hadn't been in touch for a very long time. Last week, we, and our wives (don't worry, we don't have multiple wives- I'm just using confusing grammar), got together and grabbed a bite to eat to catch up. We talked about what we've been up to, and Cineplexity came up.

Cineplexity is a card game, with a movie theme, that has a deck of cards with various phrases, characters, critiques, or themes on them. The game is started by a player turning over two cards, reading the text on the cards aloud, and waiting for the first person to say a movie that contains themes for both of the cards. The person who correctly says (or yells) a movie title that contains the themes on both cards, gets a point, and takes the oldest card that was placed face up. The person who turned the cards over, is called the director, and the director can not guess a movie title based on the cards they turned over. However, the director gets to rule on the guesses that others make, and ultimately hands out the point to the person who guessed a movie that fits both cards. After the point is given, the deck, and the card that wasn't given out, slides to the next person and they become the director. Another card is turned, and then the process starts again. If the two cards placed face up are seeming difficult to come up with a movie title for, another card can be flipped over from the deck, and any two cards can be played. For instance, the table I was at had the cards "Takes place 1700s-1800s" and "Flying machines" (or something like that). The table seemed stumped so another card was turned over, and it was much easier to think of a movie that had two of the cards involved. The point is still awarded with the oldest card, and one of the cards flipped is returned to the deck. (I apologize if I got any of the rules wrong)

There were several people on hand to take part in the game play at two tables, along with prizes being handed out for winners of each game, or people who had clever answers. To determine a winner, we played until someone had 10 points, though I'm sure you could play the game for hours, or until the whole deck is gone (that would take a long time). There were even local media there taking pictures, so that was very cool. It's good to see things like this getting exposure, since it may seem a bit under the radar for most people. There was a really good energy about the whole place, and it was really interesting hearing people talk about the game, and talk through their answers if someone didn't know what movie they were talking about. That's what's great about this game, you can easily start a group dialog about a movie, or a card, or the game itself. I didn't know anyone there, with the exception of a few people, and it was easy to talk to them about a movie, or a good answer someone had come up with. I think I'm usually a pretty introverted person around people I don't know, but this game eased that feeling quickly. The game made it easy to get into the flow of how everyone played it. The cards were very creative, and easy to read. I think the funniest one we had at our table while I was playing was "Tripping, Tipping, or Stripping". Hilarious.

That's the great thing about this game, it's creative, it makes you think, and it'll play differently based on the people you have playing with you. For instance, we had a card that said "1950s and 1960s" and "Underrated". I said Vertigo, which to some, may be an underrated film and to others, not so much. Since much of the crowd seemed to be attending the Wisconsin Film Festival, Vertigo was not underrated to them, but to many of my friends, I could see them thinking it was underrated (even I think it's kind of underrated). The dialog about answers, or the cards facing up, really makes the game interesting to me. Even though I only scored two points, it didn't seem like it. I really felt like I was participating well, even though I wasn't doing so well according to my score. Another thing that this game really has going for it, is that there are no absolute answers. The deck could be 20 years old, and still apply to films that came out that very year. The game morphs itself-easily- to when it was played, who's playing it, and there are almost endless combinations. I'm sure there's an exact number of combinations, and JM can probably give that to you, but I'll just stick with endless. In other words, this will be a great party game, and will make dialog easy to start amongst a group of people, even if you don't know them. I can't wait to buy it when it comes out, and I can't wait to buy it for someone else as a gift. I think many different types of people will enjoy this. Somewhere down the line, when people think of movie games, I bet Cineplexity will invariably come up in there heads. It's not only a great game, it has a great, memorable name. Cineplexity.