Game Review: Cineplexity

By Ted Cheatham & W. Eric Martin
August 15, 2007 (updated December 7, 2008)

Publisher: Out of the Box Publishing
Designers: JonMichael Rasmus, John Sams & Sean Weitner
Players: 4-10
Ages: 13+
Playing Time: 20-30 minutes
Rules Language: English
Links:

Ted Cheatham takes a starring role in this review of Cineplexity, a movie-themed party game released in 2007 by Out of the Box Games. You can watch the video on BGN, as hosted by YouTube:

Or you can download Ted’s Cineplexity review onto a device of your choice. Or you can cut to the chase by reading my summary, which begins below the jump.

Cineplexity is a twist on trivia games as the game provides only the clues that can generate answers, but not the answers themselves. Each round the director – a rotating role akin to the judge in Apples to Apples – reveals a pair of category cards, with the categories including Characters, Genre, Scenes, Actors, Setting, Props, Critiques, Theme and Production. Players race to name a movie that shares the qualities of these cards, and once the director decides that an answer is correct, she awards one of the cards to the player who gave the answer. Ready? Go!

Name a movie that has:

• Prop: Popcorn or poison
• Characters: An alien or agnostic

That’s a rough summary of my one and only game. When a player could name a movie, the director typically didn’t know the movie herself or didn’t think it was a winning answer. In this situation, you can turn over a third card and allow players to name a movie on any two of the three cards, but as the minutes pass and no one can think of anything, you’re hoping that anyone can say anything that will convince the director to hand over one of the precious cards. Seriously – can we end this charade now?

I suppose that if Cineplexity were played by a group of film buffs, all of whom had a similar background, the game could be enjoyable. In our group, however, we repeatedly struggled to think of titles, titles that were then met with “I don’t know that movie.” If another player backed up your example, the director would grudgingly hand over the point, but there was no connection between the players, no sense of discovery or fun. The cards directed you in an awkward dance, and you couldn’t wait for the curtain to come down.

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