“Think fast and shout your answer… because silence is deadly!”
The Christmas and New Year period is a time of not only parties and presents but the perfect time to spend with family and friends. A perfect way to entertain everybody is with board games, tabletop games or card games. Most games tend to be aimed at young children and families but there seem to more and more coming on the market that are aimed at teenagers and adults. I was sent Brain Fart, a game for 3 or more players, aimed at age 14+.
Brain Fart is a tabletop game that is a very quick-thinking word game where silence is deadly, and once reading the blurb on the box it sounds easy to play. Well, it is! As long as you can get your brain to work and get over the mental block that comes from nowhere when trying to very quickly think of an answer. The questions are not difficult, the answers should be easy to come up, but this game sees even the best of us have a brain fart (a temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly) and suffer from TOT Syndrome (Tip-of-the-Tongue Syndrome)!
In the box there is:
- 9 Category Cubes
- Electronic Brain Display Timer/Letter Generator
- 25 tokens
- Rules
Brain Fart, from Interplay, has 9 large lightweight cubes with each side having a different category, a total of 54 categories. It also comes with a battery-operated electronic brain (timer and letter generator) that gives a random selection of 21 letters. The idea of the game is to roll the cubes, press the brain to get a letter and name something beginning with that letter from any category showing on the cubes (categories such as; movies, crimes, reasons to break up …). Simple right? You would think so, but it is anything but, but lots of fun.
Setup is simple as there aren’t really many component pieces, you just place the electronic brain (requires 2x AAA batteries for the digital display and timer, not supplied) and the 25 tokens in the centre of the table so that everyone can reach them. Everyone then takes some cubes and you’re ready to play.
To play, all players roll their cubes into the playing area. One player presses down on the brain to generate a random letter and start the timer (the timer is random and can be anywhere between 30 and 45 seconds). Each player, in turn, then has to name something from any of the categories showing on the cubes with the answer beginning with that letter shown on the brain. For example, if the letter is “T” and you see the category “Gross Things” you could say “Tarantula” on your turn (or something much more gross if you are that way inclined and playing with people with a sense of humour). Once you name something you grab that cube and play continues left around the table with each player until all the cubes have been taken or the timer goes off. If the timer goes off on your turn (it makes a fart noise) before answering, you lose and receive a token. Play restarts again until all the tokens are taken, and the player with the least tokens is declared the winner.
Overall, what initially sounds like a simple game that could be quite tedious really is a lot of fast-thinking fun. It is simple to understand, set up and play and can be played anywhere. You really do have to have a quick-thinking mind and even the best of us will suffer the dreaded brain fart from having to look at the category cubes, the letter on the timer and then trying to think of an answer in seconds. All that pressure really does wipe your memory of even the simplest of answers.
The age guidance of 14+ is probably the right age as you do have to have a reasonable vocabulary and probably a bigger pool of knowledge, including useless stuff, to enable you to come up with an answer.
Brain Fart is a really fun addition to game night, for teenagers and adults. I would say 4 players would be best for maximum fun. The only small negative with the game is that I think the printing on the cubes will rub off quite easily, although the instructions do say not to roll on hard surfaces, so maybe rolling them on to a cloth or carpet would be best to prolong the life of the cubes.
Despite the small negative issue with the cubes, I would still rate Brain Fart 5 stars. It is a fun game that is easy to set up and understand and it can be played anywhere. Will you be caught out with a Brain Fart?
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £24.99
For more information, visit playmonster.co.uk. Available to buy from Amazon here.
Disclosure: I received this item for free for the purposes of writing an honest and impartial review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This review uses an affiliate link which I may receive a small commission from if you purchase through the link.
