Things in Rings: Review
Introduction:
Things in Rings is a fun deduction, word, and party game that is an approachable card shedding game for a range of players. Players are trying to reduce their five-card hand by placing a thing (card) in the correct location of the Venn diagram. The card could match an attribute, word, or content; any combination of these three; or none of the above. Only one player knows the rules of these rings (called the Knower) and they determine if the card is placed correctly. The player to shed all cards is the winner.
Game Anatomy:
Things:
These are the cards that players are trying to shed from their hands. All of these things are physical items in some capacity. Some examples include an elephant, a banana, a vacuum, a school, and even a brain.
Rings:
There are three rings used in the game, that create are organised into a Venn diagram. Yellow is in reference to the word itself. This could be how many vowels are in a word, if the word contains a certain letter, or even the length of the word.
Red refers to the societal context of the word. This could be something that only the rich use, is man-made, or things found in a school.
Blue is an attribute of the item, such as being larger than a human or having spots/stripes.
All of these cards have different rules and come in easy, medium, and hard difficulty.
If a player plays a thing that they don't think belongs in the Venn diagram, it can be played outside of the rings in the ‘none’ section.
Setup:
- Players can choose fewer rings to scale back the difficulty.
- Place word, attribute, context signs in their matching rings, and the none sign on the outside of the rings.
- One player will be the Knower. They will draw a card for each ring based on the difficulty they choose. The other players are called Finders.
- Each player is dealt five thing cards.
- The knower correctly places three cards, then discards two.
How to Play:
The finder's goal is to have no cards in their hand. If they do this, they win. To do this on their turn, a player will place one of their things face-up in one of the sections (with a face-down card) in the image below.
The knower will keep the card there if it is correct. Otherwise, they will move the card into the correct position on the Venn diagram based on the rule cards. If the finder has placed correctly, they will immediately gain another turn. If incorrect, they will draw a replacement card from the thing deck and the next finder has a turn. Whichever finder plays all their cards first is the winner.
Cooperative Mode:
Cooperative mode is very similar to the base mode, but it can now play two players as well. In the cooperative mode, the knower draws ten thing cards, playing cards at the start equal to the player count. After this, at the end of every round they will play one more card from their hand. They do not draw cards. Instead, they work as a clue giver and a timer. The players will lose if the knower cannot play a card when they need to. The players win if all finders have played all their cards. Since the knower's cards don't change, it is pivotal that the knower plans the sequence of their cards being played so that it best assists the finders. This will often involve playing a card in a certain location to push finders into understanding the rule cards.
Final Thoughts:
- Has cooperative mode where every player is involved, and competitive mode where there is a player who doesn't have a turn and is the knower instead.
- Fun combination of deduction and party.
Things and Rings is a fast playing game that combines a deduction and party atmosphere. Using the cards that build up over time, players are trying to deduce where the thing in their hand belongs on this Venn diagram, combining rules on the word itself, the attribute of the thing, and the societal context The main competitive game can create a great tense atmosphere as players are trying to shed all cards from their hand before anyone else. Every incorrect placement is fixed by the knower and reveals information to the other players. The cooperative game is just as good and extends the player count to two players. In this version, the knower has a more active role of trying to lead the finders, having them all successfully shed their hand before the knower’s cards run out. Things and Rings is easily staying in my collection, and if you are someone who loves your word games, as well as deduction and party, then this is an easy purchase.
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