Balderdash Game Review

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Last month was my husband’s birthday, and my oldest daughter bought him the game Balderdash as a present.  We got around to playing it last week for family game night and it was hilarious.  The premise of the game is that each game card lists things you have never heard of, and you have to figure out what it could be and make it something the other players think could be correct.  Each person takes turns picking a card, and then picks one of the categories:

• Weird Words – Tell the definition of the word
• Peculiar People – Tell who the person is
• Incredible Initials – Describe what the initials stand for
• Marvelous Movies – Describe the plot of the movie
• Laughable Laws – Describe what the law says

All the other players write down their explanation for the card, and the person who drew the card writes the correct explanation.  Each is read and then each player votes for which one they think is correct.  You get points for guessing correctly, or if other players vote for the explanation you wrote.

Here is an example for a game we played. The category was Laughable Laws, and the card said, “In Blythe, CA, the law used to state that you may not wear cowboy boots unless”

The correct answer is “you already own two cows.”  But this is what we came up with:

• it is dress like a cowboy day
• you are attending a wedding or a funeral
• you have a legitimate rodeo to attend for public entertainment purposes
• an alien apocalypse is underway

The game is very funny and encourages creativity and imagination.  My kids who are 11, 14 and 17 had no trouble participating, although they weren’t as good as my husband and I at coming up with explanations that other players were liable to vote for.  My 14 year old daughter started just deliberately writing down the most outlandish thing she could think of; the “alien apocalypse” law was  hers.  We laughed a lot while playing this, and in fact my daughter says she has never seen me laugh that hard before. So this is great game for families with older kids, and I’m sure it would be fun at parties too.