I’m in the great game camp on this one. However, it is going to be more dependent on the players than most games.

As a strictly competitive game, Cineplexity doesn’t work at all. In our games, the competitors frequently began to argue FOR one of their opponent’s answers that the Director had not heard of.

Or the Director might waffle over an early argueably correct answer, then immediately give the point to an iconic answer.

Example from our game: The cards were “Guy Movies” and “Musicals”. I can’t even remember the original answer, because it was immediately overridden by “This is Spinal Tap”.

And our games had quite varying movie tastes, from Sandi and Curt’s classic movie thing, to my B-Movie expertise, to whatever universe Brian S. is tuned into. There wasn’t a lot of overlap between expertise, and the game would have really suffered if we had been playing competitively.

So it’s exactly like The Big Idea.  But instead of a sales pitch for an imaginary product, you’re trying to “sell” the real world movie.  And there is no stock market/financial aspect to the game.  And no dice.

Greg:

We’re sorry that your group didn’t enjoy the base game for Cineplexity. Out of the Box’s core audience knows their brand for such attributes as quick thinking and simultaneous shouting, and
Cineplexity’s base game was developed to accommodate that playstyle.

In designing the game, we came up with a repertoire of other games that can be played with Cineplexity—we think of the Cineplexity deck as the “deck of cards” for movie lovers, and we want it to have value for players like yourself who want an experience other than the base game. A few of those variations are listed below; if you give them a try, we hope you enjoy them.

Thanks for the review—you gave us a fair shake. Sorry the game wasn’t up your alley.

For John and JM,
Sean

CINE-SOLITAIRE ("The Lone Arranger")
Deal 10 cards, either face-up on the table or into your hand. The object is to assign these 10 cards to four movies, with one movie being described by four cards, one movie being described by three cards, one movie being described by two cards and one movie being described by one card. If four such movies cannot be found in five or so minutes, the cards should be discarded and a new hand dealt. (For beginner Cineplexity players, you may want to include only six cards and remove the requirement to find a movie described by four cards.)

CINE-MAX ("10")
Lay out 10 Cineplexity cards in a 5x2 grid. The first player is given approximately 1 minute to name any movie he so chooses, and which of the face-up cards describe that movie. (If using a timer, all applicable cards must be mentioned before the time elapses for the player to take them.) He then removes those cards, they are replaced, and play proceeds to the next player. The first player to 21 points wins.

Alternately, this game can be played in “Name That Tune"-style, where the first player guesses ("bids") how many cards on the board he can use to describe a single movie, and the player to his left can either bid a higher number or pass. Once everyone has passed, the last bidder must name a movie that uses that many cards. If he cannot make this bid, he must discard one of the cards he has already taken. (A player with no cards is not penalized.)

CINE-KUB ("The Sixth Sets")
Cineplexity meets Rummikub. Players are dealt 14 cards into their hands. The object is for the player to get rid of all the cards in his hand. Before he can lay down any cards, he must meld by creating, in his hand, two sets of cards, one that uses at least six cards and describes one movie, and another that uses at least three cards and
describes another movie. If a player cannot do this, they draw a card to end their turn. Once a player has created those two sets in his hand, he melds by laying them on the table. Now the player can rearrange the cards on the table (from his or any other player’s hands) to make new movies that each must have a minimum of three cards. They may introduce cards from their hand as well. Each
turn in this game lasts a minute. At the end of the minute, each card on the table must be in a movie. If it isn’t, all cards that are in groups of three or fewer, plus an additional three-card penalty from the deck, are added to that player’s hand. Unless the player has successfully placed all of his cards during his turn, he ends every
turn by drawing a new card from the deck.

Sean, I was just thinking that there must be a bunch of other ways to use the core game cards, and there you are with four of them right off the bat. Thanks!

And Frank, I think the universe you’re looking for is “the universe of people who don’t see very many movies, but when they do, tend to see weird ones.” 8-)