The Bad: Outnumbered!
Overview: Outnumbered!
Players: 3 to 6 players
Ages: 12 and up
Playing Time: 30 minutes (though will depend on number of players)
Retail: $24.99
Rating: Pretty bad; not one that’s likely to get much play at my house.
Who Will Like It? I’m not sure. It’s not really a game for trivia buffs, and the questions are all over the place. I suppose if you like random trivia you might enjoy it, but there are other trivia games that are done much better than Outnumbered!
Theme: Outnumbered! tries to be a trivia game with a twist. However, because all of the 750 questions have numerical answers, you get a really bizarre collection of questions, from “__-Pac” to “NFL field goal record yards.” There isn’t any unifying theme to the questions other than numbers.
Components: 375 double-sided cards, 60 dice (in six colors), 6 plastic trays. The dice are fine—there are different ones so that all the numerals from 0 to 9 are covered. The rolling trays are kind of flimsy plastic—hollow underneath, so they look nicer than they feel.
Gameplay: Each player takes a turn asking questions, and the rest compete for points. All the players roll their dice into the cup—no sorting or organizing—and then the reader asks ten questions. The reader reads the card, and then the other players race to shout out the correct answer—but the catch is, they have to have one die for each unique number in the answer. (For instance, “1967” requires four dice, but “1989” only requires three because you only need one 9 die.) Each card is worth one point per die that it requires—but that doesn’t necessarily mean that harder questions are worth more points. Is “1967” a tougher answer than “1989”? Only in getting the correct dice but not in knowing the correct answer. If you know the correct answer but don’t have the numbers, then no dice. Literally.
Once each player has read questions, then the game ends and you tally up points.
Conclusion: We tried this one out, but I don’t think any of us enjoyed it. As I’ve stated, the questions are a mixed bag. There are many that I’m sure a 12-year-old would have no clue about, and then there are some that are incredibly easy: “__ bird with __ stones.” Sometimes you get an easy question but nobody has the right dice. Sometimes you get a question for which everyone has the dice but nobody knows the answer. I felt like we spent a lot of time just saying, “Uhhhhhhh… next question?”
One other issue which we didn’t realize at first is that the cards really need to be shuffled before you play. We hit a string of questions where the answer was “2,” and then another string of “3,” and then a series of sports-related questions.
In the end, I just didn’t find this one enjoyable. I suppose if you like the idea of a trivia game that doesn’t always reward the person who knows the answer, then you might like this one, but I’d prefer to steer you toward something else.
Wired: The dice are pretty nice.
Tired: Bizarre questions that are poorly worded; flimsy rolling cups; not really a great game mechanic overall.
