Customer Reviews

Electronic Guesstures

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

First, let me say I am a huge fan of the original Guesstures. Game play was fast, frenzied, and just a lot of fun. I thought it was a good idea to make an electronic version of the game, so I went ahead and purchased this.

The concept is still the same - it's really a fast paced version of Charades.

Game play is fairly simple. A word shows up on the screen and you must act it out. If your team is able to guess the word, you push the button and score a point for your team. Push the button again, and another word will show up. Act this word out and try to get your team to guess the word. This continues until time runs out, and the goal is to act out as many words as you can in 30 seconds.

The timer is built in and the game keeps score automatically. There's even an option to contest points if you believe the opposing team was cheating. These are all good things.

The key difference between the electronic and original version is how it handles the "final word." In the old version of the game, if you couldn't act out the last few words, you just miss out on those points. There was no penalty. In this version, your team must guess the final word and you must hit the "completed" button before the timer runs out. If you are in the middle of acting out a word before the timer runs out, you gain ZERO points for that turn. So even if you successfully act out two other words, if the timer runs out in the middle of your third word, you get no points.

The problem with this method is that after your team guesses a word, you must decide if you want the next word to show up or if you want to stop playing and just let the timer run out. Words are of varying difficulty so it's a fairly big gamble to keep going. What ends up happening is people will act out one or two words very quickly and still have about 15 seconds left on the clock. Because of the fear that a difficult word will show up and that all points for the round will be lost, people choose to just stop acting. This leads to about 10-15 seconds of dead time where people wait for the timer to run out. The dead time is annoying because no one is doing anything and the timer just keeps clicking away.

If you can find the original version of the game, I recommend purchasing that. If you can't find it, this version will be fine. Just be prepared for a bit of frustration or dead time.

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Update Feb 2010: A new version is now available. Guesstures
With this new version available, I must recommend strongly against purchasing the electronic version of Guesstures. The latest version returns to the first and far superior format of the game.

I was surprised to see a new version of this game. I bought this game so that we could play it on Thanksgiving day. The words on this new version seem harder than what I remember on the old version. Also, I just do not like the electronic timer. I am returning my new game, and I plan to buy the old version.

I absolutely love this game, yes it is a little different than the original, but I like that because the same principal apply but it get a little harder in that you get 30 seconds per round, you press the button to start, you get one word, if it's gessed you press the button once and get a point, if you think you have enought time to move on to the next work you press the button again, if the word is guessed before the 30 seconds are up you press the button once to get the next point, other wise if it's not guessed you loose the entire points for that round. This makes it a lot more interesting. The only thing is that after a while some of the same words start repeating, I would like to see a larger memory in the game. But it's great!

This used to be one of my favorite party games. Then, someone had the not-so-brilliant idea of making it electronic. First of all, it didn't work. You could hit the bar multiple times and get no score at all. The loud buzzers and ticking was extremely annoying. If I can find an original version of this game, I will buy it, and I would recommend that original game to anyone, but this game? A piece of junk!

I've been a big fan of the original physical version of Guesstures. It combined a certain amount of strategy in choosing the order of the words which combined with the acting and time pressure made for a great party game.

This electronic version still takes the same basic concept but changes the rules because you no longer order the 4 cards and choose "easy" or "hard" for each card to optimize your score.

In some ways, this makes this a simpler and dumbed down game from the original. The new strategy depends on whether or not to go on to the next word when time is running out. However, it is a more portable version and filled with great words to act out that are fun for any size group.

The way my friends and I sometimes play this new version is to always move on to the next word and manually keep score of how many are guessed right (ignoring the game's self-scoring). This way there is less dead time.


Pros:
- Fun and exciting for any size group
- Easy and quick to start and play
- Very portable
- Filled with great words to act out

Cons:
- Less strategy involved than original guesstures due to not being able to plan the words ahead

Overall:
Still a great game for a party games collection, but without the ordering of cards in the original, becomes more of a straightforward acting/charades game

We had this game before and loaned it out and never got it back so I searched the web and found it, now it always gets a frown when we mention playing it to friends that have never played, but once they play they want to know where we bought it , everyone enjoys it but never imagines themselves playing "charades". I would recommend you take a chance on this it, is great fun and we have played it for 2 years now and still enjoy it , it is recommended as the game to play when we have company over, they ask to play it !! I bought it and the game arrived 2 days later !!

This game is a blast! It has an electronic timer, so there is no need to turnover the hourglass. I highly recommend this game to everyone. We even take it away to picnics and parties.

I bought this game after my friends brought it to a beach weekend. Now, we break it out and play it with any group of friends that come over. Even though none of us like the game "charades" and we're 27 years old, we all love this game and crack up as our friends try to act out the words. Great game - you won't regret buying it.

This is a GREAT group game - one word clues come up and you have one minute to act out the word - some are rather difficult, but most are easy enough to figure out. It is durable - my 1 1/2 year old grandson got hold of it and dropped it several times - it still worked! Great game!

I played this game first with a group of about ten 30- to 50-year old women away for a fun wine-trip weekend. SO MUCH FUN! We laughed so hard! I then purchased it for my sister-in-law for Christmas. We played it that night with a smaller group of family ages 7 to 60-something. Again, a blast! There is ONE piece. No cards to shuffle, organize, or any other pieces to worry about. The directions are super easy to follow and the game gets underway fast.... laughing all the way! GET THIS GAME!