A trivia game about things you oughta know for two or more players ages 14 and up
While cursing Wish.com for games I kept seeing the game I Should Have Known That. It’s bright green box and cute owls kept calling me. Maybe… I thought. Then I came across it in a second hand store for only $3 so I snapped it up. (If you’re curious about shopping on Wish, you can read my review here.)
We’re on the fence when it comes to trivia games. We tend to be not that full of knowledge but still find them interesting. We love learning about Christmas is Christmas Trivia, we like the game play of Beat the Parents and the just plain craziness of Worst Case Scenario.
So how would this this trivia game stack up? Keep reading to find out.
First, the game can be played as individuals or in teams. The rules say that teams should be kept small—three people per team.
One player is also the score keeper.
Playing I Should Have Known That
To start, the score keep takes a card and asks the person on his left the first question. This player can either try to answer the question or say pass. When a question is passed, the question asker moves to the next player and asks the next question on the card.
When a player gets a question correct, they get to cheer and the next player gets a question.
On the other hand, when a player guesses wrong, she loses points. The amount of points that you lose depends on the question. Each answer has its own point value.
The rules say to keep playing as long as everyone is still having a good time. Or you can play until someone reaches an agreed upon amount of lost points.
Should we Have Known That?
The problem with trivia games is that really how many of the questions are really answered correctly? The name of the game suggests that the questions will be easier than the average game. But are they? I would say yes and no.
There doesn’t seem to be too many questions that we just flat out have no idea. We seem to do better than at some trivia games, however, we still found that we didn’t know a lot of answers.
Some sample questions:
What
are the colour of the goal posts in hockey?
Who wrote the fairy tale “The Little Mermaid” in 1837?
What art style is associated with Claude Monet?
Who appears on the 100 dollar bill?
As a Canadian, I got the first one and struggled with the dollar question (the Queen is on all of our bills.) I did know the art question and I did say “I should have known that” for the Little Mermaid question. Really I did know that but I just couldn’t come up with the whole name.
What We Like
First, we like that the rules are realistic. Who plays trivia games the way they should be? Not us usually. Normally, we just take turns reading the questions and trying to answer, not keeping score and finishing when we get tired of answering.
Next, we like that the instructions are printed on the lid of the game. Why don’t more games do this? No lost sheets! Of course it could only work with games that have more simple instructions and smaller boxes. But still, this is brilliant.
Next, we like that you can pass without any penalties (I mean this usually happens in our games anyways…) but it is nice that the instructions included this.
What We Don’t Like
First, it is a trivia game. I think I’ve made it clear that these are not our favorites. Next, the game is a bit…basic. It’s just the box and the cards. The cards do fit nicely into the box but the box is a little big for just holding a stack of cards.
Mixing It Up
To make the game more fun, we created some of our own rules for when we want a competition.
First, players are allowed to only skip three questions in a row; otherwise some players just skip everything that they don’t know know. You know?
Next, we put in a steal option. When another player passes on a question that you know the answer to (or think you do) you get to recoup some points to your score. If you get it right, you get the amount of points on the back to add (or take away depending on how you look at it). On the other hand, if you get it wrong, you get the points plus two taken away (or added) to your score.
Should We Love it?
Over all, I should have Known that is a basic little trivia game. The twists of scoring and passing make it unique and the questions are random at different skill levels. If you love trivia games this might be worth adding to your Family Game Shelf.
Shop I Should Have Known that here. Canadians can shop here.
This game is made by Hygge Games.
Rating:
Julia:
Carrie-Anne:
Joel:
Pros: flexible play, interesting questions, quality
Cons: typical trivia issues
Mom: learning as it is a trivia game