Since I'm both a film reviewer and product reviewer, the folks at OUT OT THE BOX games contacted me about reviewing their Cinema Trivia Game – CINEPLEXITY.

My girlfriend and I invited a couple more couples to try out the game (for 4-10 teens and adults). I suppose I was expecting something roughly in the ballpark of "Trivia Pursuit," but Cineplexity has a much larger uniqueness than simply being film-related. And that is – No Answers. There are categories (such as props, scenes, actors, etc) but no printed answers. Instead, of the six of us, one was to be appointed the director/dealer and as such made the final determination which of our answers was correct (or at least, correct enough).

At first, it wasn't clear exactly how the director could make a judgment on possible answers in the cases where the director wasn't familiar with those titles. But we found an interesting aspect of the game that arose with our group, a sort of plaintiff pleading your case scenario. Could you "convince" the judge/director? At the same time, others would present arguments as to why the round's best guess should not be found satisfactory. For example, in one hand we came across a Prop card "Car with unexpected features" coupled with Genre card "Action film." Hence, the first of us to name a film that satisfied both of these parameters would win that hand. I immediately shouted "Batman" thinking I had a slam dunk. But another player pointed out to the director that those super powers of the car were "expected" -- not "unexpected." Despite my arguments to the contrary the director ruled against me and other guesses were entertained. This court room aspect of the game became quite fun.

And btw, each player takes a turn at director as the deal/hand goes around the table. I enjoyed the game. Here are comments from our friends who played:

"Easier than we thought to learn."
"Not too constricting, goes where the group decides it to go."
"No moving or swallowable parts."
"Good ice breaker."
"Learn how your brains stores (or doesn't store) references and recollections."
"Stimulating."
"Nice sturdy cards that are clear and easy to read."
"Lots of card combinations, making the game quite flexible, in fact, the game can't go out of date because there are no answers given. The group is responsible for that."

The group wasn't crazy about the title of the game, I suggested "Movie Master Mind" or "Director's Cut."

At the time I agreed to review CINEPLEXITY, I took a look at the OUT OT THE BOX website and asked them to send me BALANCING ALIENS as well. I thought a silly game of luck and dexterity would be a good compliment.

So after my group of six finished playing and critiquing CINEPLEXITY. We gave the Aliens a spin. There are actually two variations of play one is "Balancing Aliens" and the other is "Dancing Aliens." Here were some of our comments:

"Good for kids" (Although this group of adults was amused for nearly a half hour.)
"The disc looks like a vinyl record album – the game should be called LP-ALIENS."
"Nice alternative to thinking."

Balancing Aliens
"Rules (for removing an alien) aren't clear if you get the points for the alien you remove before the others crash."

Dancing Aliens:
We thought of adding this rule: must choose an open sector to place the alien, if available."

We invented a third variation of play we call "Spinning Aliens." One player spins the spaceship, the other tries to set an alien on it before the ship stops spinning. Or, use a descending countdown timer – 10 to 0 seconds. Get more points for quicker placement (while the ship is spinning fast).

Not everyone was excited about the Alien games, but I enjoyed them. It's a bit nerve-racking in a fun sort of way (reminiscent of the game "Perfection"). When the spaceship finally topples and the aliens roll everywhere even us old fogies shouted out in excitement.

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