Game: You Must Be an Idiot!

Thread: Re: You Must Be An Idiot!: A Review

cferejohn — 2007-11-20T19:25:50+00:00

burthunt wrote:
It was probably a baseball fan.

Baseball fans are unaware of the difference between "state" and "city"?

Huh.

Thread: Re: 'A Clear Genius' variant, for large groups

DougOrleans — 2007-06-04T22:43:56+00:00

Larry Chong wrote:
To resolve this, I propose a variant where you double your score (from 2 to 4 points) if you are the ONLY player to answer correctly.

Here's a more general proposal: everyone who answers correctly gets a number of points equal to the number of players who answered incorrectly.

Thread: Re: Difficulty of Questions / Variant

DougOrleans — 2007-06-04T22:38:47+00:00

Stephen Glenn wrote:
"Funkybird" Cleary writes:

"The concept is a good one, but, for me, it's ruined by the questions. Most are too easy, so there is no way you can pretend to not know the answer if you are an idiot.

Since you get a point for everyone who incorrectly accuses you of being an idiot, there is an incentive for pretending to be an idiot when you're not. So even the easy questions tend to have some obviously wrong answers. It can be hard to detect this kind of bluff, which is a little frustrating, but I think this incentive is necessary to prevent it from being too easy to tell when someone has an idiot card.

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kvn299 — 2007-02-14T00:04:18+00:00

Cover of the game

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kvn299 — 2007-02-14T00:03:43+00:00

The back of the box

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kvn299 — 2007-02-14T00:02:47+00:00

A sampling of the role cards from the game

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kvn299 — 2007-02-14T00:02:17+00:00

A sampling of the trivia cards from the game

Thread: Re: You Must Be An Idiot!: A Review

ilsilvano — 2007-01-24T11:20:07+00:00

2ndPlace wrote:
I too enjoy this game. Some of the questions seem to be too easy, but then again in one game we played found errors in three questions. The state capital of Wisconsin and Wyoming were both wrong. Plus a question asks what state do the cardinals play in and the answer was St. Louis. Who edited these cards?

I do not know, but he must be an idiot!

Thread: Re: You Must Be An Idiot!: A Review

burthunt — 2006-09-09T08:07:11+00:00

It was probably a baseball fan.

Thread: Re: You Must Be An Idiot!: A Review

2ndPlace — 2006-08-18T09:23:28+00:00

I too enjoy this game. Some of the questions seem to be too easy, but then again in one game we played found errors in three questions. The state capital of Wisconsin and Wyoming were both wrong. Plus a question asks what state do the cardinals play in and the answer was St. Louis. Who edited these cards?

Thread: 'A Clear Genius' variant, for large groups

Larry Chong — 2006-02-23T14:39:27+00:00

First off, this is a fabulously funny party game. And the title is fantastic (don't think it could be any better).

Also, this game can theoretically be played with nearly any # of players. Just add differnt types of pawns and/or colors. When you accuse someone of being an Idiot (in the game, that is) place your pawn in front of that player. Or, add a space in front of that player for accusations to be placed on. It worked for us and we played with eight. It was an absolute blast.

However, having played it multiple times, I found that with a large group, players usually deliberately answer incorrectly even when they knew the answer. That's perfectly legit and a good bluffing strategy but then no one gave correct answers.

To resolve this, I propose a variant where you double your score (from 2 to 4 points) if you are the ONLY player to answer correctly. You are "clearly the only genius" amongst us! (This kinda complements the rule where if you're the ONLY idiot and no one accuses you get 3 points.) This should balance things out with a large group. (With fewer players, or with small groups of four or less, I would not invoke this variant at all.)

Thread: Difficulty of Questions / Variant

Stephen Glenn — 2006-02-07T21:39:18+00:00

"Funkybird" Cleary writes:

"The concept is a good one, but, for me, it's ruined by the questions. Most are too easy, so there is no way you can pretend to not know the answer if you are an idiot. The rest are too hard, so no one gets them correct, and there is no way to know who is an idiot and who isn't."

Bill, you are correct. If the questions are too easy or too hard, then the game is spoiled. I can imagine this is the case with someone like you, who has played a craptillion trivia/party games and has all this useless information at your fingertips (brainytips???)

My goal was to include questions that I thought approximately 80% of the general population would know. Given that 20% of the character cards are IDIOT cards, I thought that made for an interesting balance (hmm -- is he one of the 20% who DOESN'T know the answer to this question?)

BUT, as trivia questions go, they're pretty standard fare. Not much here that an avid trivia gamer like yourself hasn't seen once (or dozens of times) before.

In the original version, each player wrote two original trivia questions down on a piece of paper, folded them up and threw them in a cup. Of course, you had to write down questions of which you were certain of the answers. Then the questions were pulled out randomly, and the writer became the GENIUS for that round and asked the question. This adds a new dimension to the process, as now you have to tailor questions suited to your group. In fact, Bill, you played exactly this way when you playtested it early in the process.

However, when I pitched the game to R&R, their playtesters did not enjoy coming up with their own questions. Hence, we had to write our own questions and provide them with the game.

Thread: Re: You Must Be An Idiot!: A Review

Spatulaguy — 2006-02-01T15:15:18+00:00

An Update:

I have played the game a couple times more since my initial review and have found the idiot to non-idiot ratio to be about right. It seemed that my first game or two was merely a bad shuffle.

Thread: You Must Be An Idiot!: A Review

Spatulaguy — 2006-01-21T23:14:11+00:00

You Must Be An Idiot!

Does he really not know the answer, or is he simply trying to get me to think he doesn't? That is the essential decision in Stephen Glenn's new game.

It's a simple concept, and it is surprising that it hasn't been done before, as far as I know. One player asks a trivia question. The other players recieve a card telling them whether or not they are an idiot. The idiots must answer the question incorrectly. The other players try to answer correctly, or do they?

After everyone has had a chance to write their answers, each player reads their answers. Those who get the answer correct reveal their identity card to show everyone that indeed they were not idiots. They recieve 2 points. Now each player gets to accuse any of the players who got the answer wrong of being an idiot. If they correctly identify an idiot, they recieve 2 more points. If they wrongly accuse someone of being an idiot, the accuser loses a point and the accusee earns a point. If an idiot can manage to go without being accused, the idiot gets 3 points. Players draw new identity cards for each question, so someone may be an idiot for one question, but not on the next.

This game brings an interesting twist to trivia games. Most trivia games award players for knowing the most trivia. This game balances trivia knowledge with the bluffing of poker. Many times people answer incorrectly on purpose without being an idiot simply to steal points from other players. It becomes very difficult to tell who answers the question wrong because they have to, because they don't know the answer, or because they want to.

Conclusion
I like the game. Very few trivia games produce the tension this one is capable of. The game's production values are bright and friendly. In fact, it looks like a game that could sit next to Wal-Mart regulars such as Guesstures or CatchPhrase. For the most part it plays as good as well.

The game isn't perfect. There seemed to be a lot of very similar questions, but this may have been simply the cards we had in our particular game. This isn't a big problem because each player has several choices as to what question to ask.

Also, the ratio of idiots to normal people in the deck seemed a little off, but I can't tell if that was intentional or not. I expected there would be more idiots more often, but in one game, the game ended and only 6 of the 12 idiots were ever drawn. I thought this was a little low, but then again it did seem to make it easier for a few idiots to go undetected. This is a simple fix and may be a bit nitpicky on my part, but c'est la vie.

You Must Be An Idiot is a fun game that will see my game table often.

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markmist — 2006-01-20T17:45:40+00:00

from Rick Thornquist / Gamefest

Thread: Re: Dedication

Kobra1 — 2006-01-04T04:09:44+00:00

Sorry for your loss.

My father died of complications relating to Diabetes on October 6, 2004. It seems like minutes ago, yet it is over a year in the past. He died at what I consider a very young age, 60 years old. He was at his prime in terms of being a success in life in every way, and was stripped from me so quickly and suddenly.

Diabetes is evil, my mother has it, my father did, my grandmother did (and died from complications of). Sadly, i'm already showing signs of early insuline resistance at only 38 years old. I tell myself daily I need to "Work on it", but it is hard.

Anyway, sorry to hear about your loss, and I look forward to hearing more about the game.

Thread: Dedication

Stephen Glenn — 2005-12-30T17:40:30+00:00

Greetings,

I just rec'd my demo copies today, Friday, Dec. 30, 2005.

On Tuesday, Dec. 27, my aunt, Edna Brown (we all called her 'Sister') died from diabetes complications. Sister was one of the most fun-loving, happy people you might ever meet. She was always good for a joke or a funny story and she loved to play games with us. I know she was looking forward to seeing You Must Be An Idiot! I think she loved the title as much as I did. You see, I was her favorite idiot.

I'd like to dedicate the game to my happy memories of her.

Mary Edna Brown "Sister"
1938-2005

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Stephen Glenn — 2005-11-13T20:31:34+00:00