It's Good To Talk (Drummond Park Articulate!)

Member Name: florascarlett

Product:	Drummond Park Articulate!
Date:	01/03/08 (206 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertaining, good fun, simple to play

Disadvantages: You need to have at least three friends

I first stumbled across this game a few years ago, when I was invited over to a friend's house for a get-together. Articulate! (the exclamation mark is very important), was wheeled out and has since become one of my favourite games.

The object of the game is to be the first team to reach the finish segment of the board, which is done by describing as many words as possible to your team mates in 30 seconds. As your team shout out their guesses you struggle to articulate a better description - it really is very simple but great fun.

Preparing to Play:

Articulate! is played on a circular board which is divided into segments representing different categories. There is a small spinner in the centre, but I'll come back to that later.

Players divide into teams of 2 or more. In my opinion the more players per team the better, for example if there are 8 players, 2 teams of 4 is better than 4 teams of 2, but decide for yourself. Each team selects a playing piece and places it on the start segment.

How to Play:

One team is chosen to go first. Each turn, team members are nominated 'Describers' and 'Guessers', and all team members must take a turn at being a Describer.

The 30 second timer is up-ended, and the describer takes a card from the front of the box and describes the entry corresponding to the segment on which the team's playing piece sits on. As the start of the game is on the 'Object' segment each team starts with this category. When a team member shouts out the correct answer, the Describer takes another card from the box and repeats the process using the same category.

When the timer runs out, the turn is finished. The Describer counts the number of cards that were correctly guessed and moves their playing piece forward on the board that many segments. The segment landed on will be the category that team describes on their next go.

Play passes to the next team, who by this point will be raring to go - warning: people become very competitive when playing this game!

There are description rules which every Describer must abide by:

They MUST NOT -
Use "sounds like..." type clues,
Say what letter the word begins with or how many letters it has,
Say the word or any derivative, for example if the word is 'postman' you can't say 'post', 'postage' or 'man' etc.

They MAY -
Use gestures, mime, or act (but not mouth the word),
Choose to pass and not play a card - but only once each turn!

The Different Categories:

On each card there are 6 different categories -
PEOPLE: eg Dr. Livingstone, General Custer, James Dean
WORLD: eg Belfast, The River Kwai, The Louvre
OBJECT: eg Carpet, Honeycomb, Medicine
ACTION: eg Draining, Calculating, Changing
NATURE: eg Lizard, Mint, Carnivore
RANDOM: words from any of the above categories

In my opinion words from the 'Object' category are the easiest to describe, and 'Action' words the hardest (although all words in this category end in -ing), with the other categories falling somewhere in between.

There is another type of segment on the board, that isn't a category on the cards - this is the 'Control' segment, and is represented by a spade symbol. When a team lands on a control segment play does not pass to the next team, instead the Describer who has just been playing takes another card and describes the entry which has the spade symbol beside it - this could be beside any category. There is no time limit, and anyone from any team can guess. Play passes to the team which shouts out the right answer first.

In this game there is also a spinner. The idea is that if a playing piece lands on either a 'Action' or 'Random' segment, that team gets to spin. Depending on where the spinner stops, teams have the chance to move forward a couple of segments on the board, or move another team's playing piece back.

How to Win the Game:

When a team reaches the finish segment, the Describer on that team must describe a 'Control' entry to everyone (the entry with the spade beside it). To win, their team must be the first to guess correctly. If they fail, they wait until their next turn to try again. While they are waiting other teams can move them back with their spin bonuses.

Other information about Articulate!:

Articulate! is made by Drumond Park who have also made the likes of Absolute Balderdash, Bedlam, and Spit it Out. The contents of the game are:

500 Subject Cards (3000 entries)
Circular Board (with Spinner)
30 Second Sand Timer
4 Playing Pieces
Rules Booklet

Articulate! can be played by 4 - 20+ players, but I think that it's more fun with the more people playing.

It is for age 12 and over, which I would agree with - some of the descriptions might be difficult for children, however Drumond Park have made an Articulate! game for kids so you might want to look out for it if you want to play this with youngsters.

You can also buy an extra pack of cards, which will come in useful if you play this game a lot and want some new words to describe.

How Much it Costs:

You can buy Articulate! for approx £25, however I picked up mine for about a tenner in a sale, so look out for bargains.

Articulate! for Kids, can be purchased online for about £17

The Articulate! Extra Pack will cost approx £15.

My Overall Opinion:

On the outside of the box this game is described as being "one of the fastest moving, liveliest, and most gripping quality board games" and I would have to agree. It is a brill party game, which involves everyone, isn't overly complicated, and can be a great ice-breaker. I even brought it into work one Christmas Eve (when I knew we'd be sitting about bored - cause of the holidays obviously, and not because we normally sit about doing no work!), and everyone loved it! It is highly enjoyable and I am yet to meet someone who hasn't had a good laugh playing it.

My only disappointment is that the sand in my timer somehow got damp so the timer doesn't work - but I just use the stopwatch on my mobile phone, so it's no big deal.

I would recommend this game to everyone!

Summary: Top class party board game