In article om,
"Chris" wrote:

I have heard and read that the Cranium games are fun and thought of
getting one as a gift this year. I didn't realize there are about 10
different versions! Any thoughts on which would be the most
appropriate for a family with a 10 and 14 year old boys?

Chris


I haven't played all of them, but we've been having a hoot with Hoopla.

Everyone here is older (19 and up), but one of the nice things about the
way the game is set up is that it is played as a single team: that is,
while one person is giving clues, everyone else at the table is trying
to guess, and you are playing against the clock -- so if you (the
collective you . . .) get all the cards before the time runs out, you
(the collective . . .) win.

What that means is that for cards that have things that only older
people might understand, all the older people (ie, the parents and
grandparents) will more likely get it -- on the other hand, there are
cards that only teens or younger might easily get more easily than us
old farts. (So who the heck among us over 50 set even knew who the
musicians the kids were naming WERE -- never mind what kind of music
they played!)

The other two I've been thinking about getting for our family are
Cranium Conga (which looks like it wold work well for a 10 yo, as well
as the grownups) and the original Cranium (which looks like it MIGHT be
problematic for someone as young as 10).

Our family has had a challenging year (starting more than a year ago)
and some of the challenges have meant that people weren't speaking to
each other. For a while, DS would leave the house if DD1 came over to
visit. This game has been one of the things that has helped us get back
together: there's nothing like laughing together for an hour or two
over really silly things to heal. I wish I could show y'all a picture
of DD1 trying to act out "drag queen" . . . (and, predictably, DS was
the one who guessed it); it was worth the price of the game all by
itself! I'm looking forward to playing this with my parents when the
come in a few months, too.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care