Scattergories
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Scattergories | |
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| Publisher | Hasbro |
| Players | 2-6 |
| Age range | 12 and up |
| Setup time | 1-3 minutes |
| Playing time | 5 minutes per round. |
| Random chance | Low |
| Skills required | Vocabulary Counting Social skills |
Scattergories is a fast-thinking category-based party game produced by Hasbro through the Milton Bradley Company and published in 1988 [1]. The objective of the 2-to-6-player game is to score points by uniquely naming objects within a set of categories, given an initial letter, within a time limit.
Contents |
[edit] Gameplay
The game is played in sets of 3 rounds.
- Each player takes a folder with a pad of paper and 3 category cards. Each sheet in the pad has three columns of 12 blank lines. In addition, each card has 4 lists of 12 unique categories, for a total of 12 lists and 144 categories. All players must agree on the list to use.
- One player rolls a 20-sided letter die to determine the first letter used. The timer is set for up to three minutes.
- One player starts the timer. In the time allotted, each player must attempt to think of and write down, in the first column on the pad, a word or term that fits each of the 12 categories and starts with the rolled letter. Any number of words in the answer is allowed, as long as the first word starts with the correct letter. For example, with a category of "vegetable" and a letter of "C", words such as "cucumber", "carrot" and "cauliflower" are acceptable, but "broccoli" is not (wrong initial letter), nor is "citrus" (wrong category). Alliteration is encouraged.
- All players stop writing when the timer is finished. Following the list, each player, in turn, reads their answer for each category. Players score zero points for an answer that duplicates another answer in that round, and one point for an answer no other player has given. Acceptable answers using alliteration score one point for each word using the letter.
- For example, in the "C-vegetable" example, if players A, B, and C answered "cucumber", "cucumber", and "cauliflower" , respectively, players A and B would score nothing, and C would score 1 point. Adjectives may not represent the letter to be used. For instance, "crunchy carrot" would only receive one point, for carrot. Similarly, "crunchy onion" is unacceptable.
- The die is rolled again (and re-rolled if the same letter as the previous round is duplicated), and the second round starts.
[edit] Game show version
Main article: Scattergories (game show)
Like Scrabble, the board game became an ill-fated NBC game show in 1993 hosted by Dick Clark. It ran right after Scrabble which was revived for a short time during this period, and featured Chuck Woolery as a regular panelist.
[edit] External links
Hasbro.com product detail on Scattergories
