Cranium (the game)

10 years ago

I've had such a fun week, including an improv workshop Thursday night and a game night at a friend's home last night. There were 11 of us, and although many brought games of all kinds, we ended up playing Cranium all evening. Do you know the game? It's a good one for a group, as you play in teams. Most of us had played it before at my house, and really enjoyed it. It was just as much fun this time--so much hilarity!

Some of the moves involve drawing (possibly eyes closed) or sculpting, so it's great to have an artist on your team. We're fortunate to have a couple of exceptional ones in the mix.

Cranium can be a humbling experience too . . . spelling something backwards (or, more accurately, attempting to) makes me realize I'm not quite as brilliant as I think I am. LOL

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (5)

bob_cville
10 years ago
I've played it quite a bit in the past. I like that the different categories can play to the different strengths of the participants. I excel in the red category (knowledge-based), and do pretty well in the blue category (drawing and sculpting), some of the yellow category (word-based) I'm fine with, others are troublesome, lastly the green category (performance) is my nemesis. The charades-like ones in that category are usually manageable, the act-like-a-famous-person ones are less manageable for me, and the hum-a-song ones are a complete show stopper.

We were playing with my brother and his wife and his wife's brother and they are a very musical family (I think her brother has had years of voice training) and he would offer helpful advice like "Just sing the song normally, but with your lips clamped tightly together". That might be helpful if 1) I could sing the song normally and 2) if I even knew the song from the title on the card.
Alisande
Original Author
10 years ago
LOL Bob . . . I come from a musical family and pride myself on knowing a zillion songs, but apparently most were written before 1970. Last night I was supposed to hum the James Bond Theme Song. I have no idea what that is! I could have done "Goldfinger" or "Nobody Does it Better," but they didn't seem right. So I handed it off to a teammate. He didn't know the song either, so he gave it to another teammate. She launched into the Peter Gunn theme. :-)

One of the artists sculpted what appeared to be a sausage going in and out of a napkin ring. Before the laughter got too suggestive, my dad's teachings about automobile engines came to me: a piston in a cylinder! Yay!
Related Discussions
Have a favorite board game?
Q
Comments (35)
Left-Right-Center: a dice game that can be played with the chips that come with it or for money. Simple for all ages but still fun. Cheap to buy, easy to store because it is very small. Loaded Question: Player 1 asks question, everyone writes their answer, Player 2 reads answers so that P1 can't match answer to handwriting. We always play by just randomly picking cards & questions, we've never used the board and official rules. Some questions are fun, some seem fun until you realize you have to decide who each answer matches. For instance: if you could change any part of your body what would you change. Fun, until you realize someone wrote nose job. Now YOU have to say I think so&so said nose job. Well so&so might think why would you think I want a nose job? One of the silliest ones was a group of neighbor ladies. The question was what to do you wear to feel sexy. Lots of typical usual answers but someone wrote "white tube socks". Those type of answers is what makes it fun. And those type of questions can be skipped in a mixed age group.
...See More
What is your favorite game?
Q
Comments (35)
Lyban, the kids I work with vary a lot in how much frustration tolerance they have and how much complexity they enjoy. Simple games like Candyland and Hi Ho Cherry-O are often popular, but because I cannot control how long they take to end, I don't often use them. My younger clients often enjoy matching/memory games like this one, which I use daily. For kids with short attention spans or low frustration tolerance, I use only half the pairs, to make it easier for them to succeed the first few times we play: I also use Jenga a lot with kids of all ages, if the child can tolerate the crashing sound when the tower falls; some kids cannot and that's what we work on but as a grandparent you're better off just playing for fun! "Spot It" is another of my most popular games, and they have a Junior version for younger kids: The regular game is a big hit with my clients all the way up to college age. Actually, that's true for almost all my games-- even surly teenagers love "little kid games". Hope this helps and sorry for the hijack and also that I don't know how to make smaller photos when I steal them from Amazon.
...See More
What games do you play?
Q
Comments (41)
Crossword puzzles. It's rare when I can't finish one but I'm not good enough to solve in pen... at least not confidently. I print out several almost every day to do during any slow time at school. I try to encourage students to join me (HS aged) but they're really not interested. They have to THINK and have more than a 3-4 letter word vocabulary, so don't have the patience.
...See More
What games do you play?
Q
Comments (33)
Lily, I would play with you too! Maybe you can find a source of games in your community. A venue in my area has Game Night once a month, attended by people of all ages. Some of the games look rather intense and seem to require a lot of thought (Pandemic is one), but I've played lighter games there with a friend. If you're close to my age you could probably find games at a local senior center. You could also poll your friends to see if there's any interest. Who knows--some may be silently yearning for a fun game. Fran, I was thinking about bridge recently. I haven't played since the 1960's, but I'd be willing to read up on it and see if I could join a group. However, I remember my husband was not thrilled with my bridge playing. He was a serious duplicate bridge player, and I like to chat while I play. Chances are the local groups would feel the same way my husband did about my playing style. LOL Foggy, I looked up Telestrations, and it sounds like great fun. But I wonder if the two artists in my group would spoil some of the fun. They are very good. Playing Cranium on my team recently, one of them had to draw a saddle with her eyes closed. It was perfect. Socks, thanks for the tip about Hoot Owl Hoot and Peaceable games!
...See More
jim_1 (Zone 5B)
10 years ago
I notice in the photo that someone created the perfect 'game' for me! Smart Ass. Of course, for me, it is not a game but a way of life.
pam_25f
10 years ago
I love getting together with friends to play games. It's usually just women because the men aren't interested. I also like that we tend to include people who don't hang around the same places as we do.
Alisande
Original Author
10 years ago
I love it too, Pam. We're lucky to have several enthusiastic men in the mix. Last night there were four couples and three single women.

Jim, we never even got to open the box on that one. None of us have ever played it, but when we saw it was limited to 8 people we set it aside. Had we known you were available.....

Cranium (the game)

Comments (5)

bob_cville

Alisande
Original Author

Related Discussions

jim_1 (Zone 5B)

pam_25f

Alisande
Original Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Cranium (the game)

Comments (5)

bob_cville

AlisandeOriginal Author

Related Discussions

jim_1 (Zone 5B)

pam_25f

AlisandeOriginal Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Alisande
Original Author

Alisande
Original Author