Catch It, Guess It, Pass It!

                                              Catch Phrase is the fun word or word phrase guessing game. There are two versions of Catch Phrase: board game and electronic, but I will focus on the one I played, the electronic version. It is the quickest and most popular from what I have seen. This game is played with four players or more but must be an even number because the game is played on teams and usually is played rather quickly, between 10-15 minutes. This is a good thing because once you finish one game you can very quickly start another. The skills required to play this game are teamwork. Each player has a teammate that they must be able to communicate fairly well with.  The component of this game is one electronic disc that does everything through the clicking of a couple of buttons on it. So once your team of two is made, along with the other team/teams, you can start the game. The goal of Catch Phrase is that one player holds the disc with a word on the screen and must somehow get their teammate to say that word through different clues. They are not allowed to say the word, rhyme with the word, give letters in the word, or syllables; only give verbal or physical hints of what it is. Once the teammate guesses the word you pass the disc to the other team so they may perform the same task but with a different word. While this is happening there is a timer counting down and whichever team left holding the disc when the timer goes off loses the round and the other team scores a point. The team to reach 7 points first wins the game. The game will keep up with these points for you.

Before starting each game you can pick from a variety of categories for the round you want to play. This electronic disc has 10,000 words in it and the categories range from Entertainment to Animals and everything in between. You may also choose the “Everything” category which covers all 10,000 words. If you are familiar with Taboo, this game is quite similar.

When I play Catch Phrase I like to play with 4 players which is 2 teams. Three of my friends and I had a game night where one game we played was Catch Phrase. I have had this game for awhile and absolutely love to play with friends. It gets intense. I also need to add that when intoxicated, things get pretty interesting. After deciding to play and choosing who was going to be on teams, the adventure began. We sat at a rather big kitchen table that enabled plenty of physical movement but too much room when passing the disc from team to team. Mostly because whichever team finished their word would be stuck with the disc when passing because the timer would ring while passing, meaning they got the point. We were getting pretty upset about this happening so we started throwing it basically. Told ya, intense. You would not think this game could be hard but it definitely can. During one round a player on the opposite team, which was a guy, got the word “taknini”. He did not know what a tankini was and this was his pass word, so they either had to guess it our we got a point. He could not do it and finally blurted out the word and pronounced it Tank-in-i. I am pretty sure I have never laughed that hard, plus we got a point. Basically, when picking a category before playing, make sure everyone can relate with the topic and is sure to be able to pronounce the words. While playing this game I found myself trying so hard that I literally could not talk or make any words come out of my mouth when it come our teams turn. It’s like you completely forget everything you have ever learned which causes much stress but at the same time an immense amount of fun. We played for a good hour which consists of many games. Me and my friend won every time, probably because the other team was guys and were, like I said, intoxicated.

This game is beyond fun and will leave you hanging off the edge of your seat. It is enjoyable but is extremely stressful when you are faced with not knowing the word or knowing how to give a hint for the word. This game usually costs around 25 dollars but it is not wasted money. This game is the perfect game to play anytime of the day that is sure to bring a good time to a group of people. The only person who would not like this game is someone who doesn’t like fun.

Megan Crager