Fans of Big Brother, the reality television show, will be happy to learn that they can now play their own game of Big Brother in the comfort of their own home. Big Brother: The Game can be played with a handful of your closest friends for an evening of confrontations, gossip squares, and voting out. If this sounds like a day at high school, just remember that it is only a reality television board game. Pressman Toy Corporation has manufactured a game that attempts to duplicate the dramas that are created on the television series Big Brother, a series that continues to return each year for another season.
Big Brother:The Game Details
Big Brother: The Game comes fully loaded with 6 player ID cards, 6 people movers, 120 numbered ballot cards (for vote outs), 162 confrontation cards, 6 camera cards, 2 dice, a blue ballot box, a gossip table dice chart, a playing board with rooms and squares to move on, and stands for the people movers.
Playing this game will seem a little complicated at first if you are not familiar with the Big Brother television reality show. Once set up is complete and each player has 20 ballot cards and a person icon to move on the board, the youngest player starts the game by rolling the dice and moving out of the living room (the starting place). If there are 6 players, 4 rounds are played. A round consists of each player taking one turn, If there are only 4 players, there will only be 2 rounds.
The squares on the board represent confrontation squares, gossip squares, camera squares, and room squares. Each type of square calls for a different action on the player’s part. When a player lands on a confrontation square, a confrontation square is chosen and read aloud for all players to vote. Game players vote for the person that they thing matches the positive outcome on the card. An example:
Dancin’ Fools: We’re all invited to a swing dance party…
–who knows how to cut a rug with the best of them?
Camera Cards
When a player lands on a camera card square, a camera card is chosen and read silently by the player. When the card holder catches one of the players doing what the card said on the card holder’s number, the player must put a ballot card in the voting box with the card holder’s number.
Gossip Squares
Players landing on a gossip square must choose a partner to roll the dice with for the gossip board. Each person rolls on die and matches up the combination on the gossip board where there are personality traits written in corresponding squares.
Examples: Optimist, Hothead, Neurotic, Cuddler, Workaholic, Jock, Diplomat,Bore, Klutz, Whiner
Each partner must decide which player best matches that description, while the other players count to ten. When the time is up, the partners must reveal who they voted for. If they voted for the same player, each can put one of their own ballot cards into the box. If the votes are different, they do not.
The room squares all have specific directions on them, written on the board squares.
After each round the votes are tallied and the 2 people with the least amount of votes get sent to a VOTING OUT. At the Voting Out, three confrontation cards are used to decide which person will get booted. The voted out players DO get to continue to participate in votes during the remainder of the game.
The last man/woman standing is the winner, after the final vote out when the rounds are completed.
Who Deserves Big Brother THE GAME?
Big Brother: The Game game would be appealing to Big Brother fans and to older teens and young adults who like to play this type of game. Some of the questions are similar to the types of questions found in the game True Colors. The confrontation cards are similar.
There are a few warnings that should be considered before gifting Big Brother: The Game to friends. This game has the potential to bruise egos, hurt feelings, and have your friends voting you out. There are some pretty strong personality descriptions on the gossip board and imagine the player that finds that they have a total of zero votes in the little blue ballot box at the end of a round. This game is designed to be played for fun, but there is definitely potential for some hard feelings.
The length of each game with 4 players is somewhat short for a board game. If all players are familiar with how to play the game, the game goes too fast, in my opinion. We play this game infrequently since it can be difficult to gather a bunch of adults willing to play. The game is designed for players 16 and up and I would not recommend this game for younger teens or children.
I recommend Big Brother: The Game for people that are seriously hooked on the television show Big Brother and warn others to avoid the confrontations and vote outs.
