Designed by: Ed Naujokas
Block Party is a building game of creation, deduction, and interpretation.
The game comes with a large amount small wooden blocks – one might say cubes – which are placed where everyone can reach them. Everyone is dealt a Building card, which has a list of nouns on it: trousers, ice cream, building, face, etc. In each turn, one player will be the guesser – they don’t build – while everyone else takes the blocks, one at a time, and creates something on their building board that they hope will lead the guesser to identify the word they chose: if they do, both the builder and the guesser score a point.
This is all happening quickly – at the start of each round a Bonus Card is flipped that gives both the building time limit (30, 45 or 60 seconds) and a potential bonus for the builder who used most blocks, least blocks, built the tallest, built the quickest, et cetera. The catch is you can only claim this bonus point if the guesser correctly identifies your word!
Each player also has a Steal token, and if the guesser guesses another player’s word incorrectly, you can spend it – once per round – to leap in and have a guess yourself. Get it right, and you and the creator get a point each. Once the Guesser has tried to identify everyone’s creation, a new round begins with the next player clockwise now guessing.
After a number of rounds, the player with the most points wins.
None, although there can be (funny) frustration when your obviously-a-strawberry gets identified as a tomato
Very, very low.
Very low also: the rules are simple and the fun is in the making and guessing.
It's always the same game, and there are only six Challenge cards. But the Building cards are more numerous and you'd have to play a fair few times with the same people to get the sense things were predictable.
2-6
Players
6+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
One of those games where it can be more fun to lose than win - or at least, funnier. The success of Block Party as a game relies on the misconceptions as much as the tension of building against the clock, especially if you're trying to use the most blocks, or build the highest. Getting your word guessed is great; but them getting it wrong can lead to the games high points; someone tries to steal and gets it wrong again, you finally reveal what it was to much realisation/mirth/disdain/delete as appropriate. Perhaps not one to play all night long, but really fun when you're in the mood for it. Best with 4-6, we'd say.