Not all games need to have gravitas. I know that I have waxed poetic about how some games bring reality crashing into your psyche like This War of Mine. I’ve droned about how the smallest rule change can create a different experience in my essay on, of all things, UNO. Games are important. They do tell us something about ourselves and the decisions we make. But sometimes….
Sometimes…
Sometimes you want to be stupid and loud and just play a silly game.
Gimme That! by Dolphin Hat Games delivers exactly that.
Can You Describe the Ruckus?
My wife and I were at GenCon ‘22 and waiting to jump into a game of Blood on the Clocktower. We saw a group of people sitting around a coffee table. They were being loud and boisterous and drawing a crowd.
Including us.
We looked over their shoulders and saw one person frantically rolling a ginormous yellow die, while another was furiously writing on a piece of paper. After each die roll, everyone but the writer would do some sort of uniform hand movement, shouting “MASH” or “HIGH-FIVE”. It seemed like they were either trying to call forth an Angry Elder God or sharing recipes. Hard to tell. When the die roller rolled a pencil, that player then ripped the pencil from the writer and the die was passed to the next person. The ritual began again.
They were laughing and groaning, yelling and waving their arms about. They looked like they were having the best time of their lives.
We wanted in.
When the game finished, they were kind enough to ask complete strangers to join (aren’t games wonderful) and by the end I was sweating and laughing and we were once again drawing our own crowd.
I’m waxing poetic again. Much easier to say that you can pick up the game in about a minute.
No, Seriously, That’s It
Everyone starts a sheet of paper with 100 blank spots (they are actually potatoes, but it really really doesn’t matter). The goal is to be the first person to reach 100 on whatever sheet of paper is in front of them.
The problem is that there is only one pencil for the group to share.
The driver of the game is the die. While one person is writing, the person to their left is rolling. Or more likely throwing the die. And then chasing the die. Four of the six spots are a group hand movement. When rolled, everyone but the writer has to pound the table (mashing potatoes) or give high fives to their neighbors or something else.
The trick is that one of the die face merely says “LEFT”. With that comand, everyone has to slide their paper to the person to their left, once again skipping over the person feverishly writing.
When a pencil is rolled, the writer is supposed to hand the pencil to the roller and the dice is to be handed to the next person to the left.
What really happens is that the old roller rips the pencil unceremoniously out of the writers hand, rendering them like a confused raccoon washing sugar in water. The new roller is left to fend for themselves to find and grab the die. Luckily, the rest of the table is on their side and pushes it towards them.
And THERE is why this simple game works so well.
A Boisterous Contest Dealing Exponential Frenzies
Gimme That! obviously falls into the same wheelhouse as Spot It!, Happy Salmon or Left Right Center. But there are some key differences that make this game stand out.
For instance, unlike Left Right Center, Gimme That! has no player elimination. Even if your paper has no numbers written on it at all, with that all important LEFT die face, it won’t remain there for very long.
Which leads to the other key difference.
There’s something really satisfying about a game that gives a shared benefit. And it doesn’t always have to be a complicated market like in Concordia or Clans of Caledonia. In Gimme That!! a very simple, but very effective, dynamic shift takes place as the game progresses.
Every time the pencil goes from your hand to the next player, your role changes. As a pencil holder, you are one against many, frantic against an unknown countdown clock.
As the now pencil-less, you are one of the many against one. But you are the lowest in the hierarchy of being able to reach the goal of getting that pencil back. The highest of the new pecking order, and now the loudest, is the person to the left of the die roller, who find themselves within reach of making their own progress.
That three person energy of pencil, die roller, and next in line flows around the table. Building higher and higher as the count-up continues. Add in unifying hand gestures, groans and yells as paper changes hands, and you get a glorious cacophony of silliness.
This review is now 800 words. I’ve talked long enough. All you really need to know is this: Gimme That! is fun, it’s easy and it’s cheap. For what it is, it does it fantastically.
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