Matthew BaileyIt’s really rare that we review trivia games here on Little Board Gamers. The main reason is that, when you’re playing with children, there’s usually quite a big gap in ability when it comes to general knowledge. But trivia games still get played a lot in our house, especially with adults, and today I want to talk about one from Big Potato Games that I absolutely love – and actually think has some legs with the right child – and that’s “Don’t Fall For It.”
At first glance, the game presents itself with a bit of a dexterity element, but in reality it’s more of a trivia game at heart. You set up a tower using twelve coloured cardboard sticks, pop a load of cubes on top, and slot in a question card. Each card gives you a list of ten possible answers on a particular theme – things like types of spider, Ben & Jerry’s flavours, variations of Coca-Cola, or ways to say hello in different languages. Some of the answers are correct, some are fake. Your job is to figure out which is which by covering the “real” answers with little black cylinders.
The clever part is that you’re rarely going to know all the answers. In fact, half the time you won’t know any of them, because some are really obscure! Instead, it becomes a fun little guessing and deduction game, using common sense and a bit of bluff-busting to decide what’s most likely real or fake. That makes it surprisingly good for younger kids too, or for playing in family teams, because knowledge isn’t the deciding factor – everyone gets a fair shot.
If you get it wrong, though, there’s a catch: depending on the colour of the wrong answer, you have to pull out a stick from the tower. Any cubes that fall out the bottom become yours, and in a two-player game if you collect eleven cubes you lose. That random element of how many cubes tumble out keeps the game balanced – even the strongest trivia player isn’t safe, which is a really nice touch.
We’ve really enjoyed “Don’t Fall For It”. It’s a simple, clever little trivia game with very low stakes, and it’s been a hit in our house over the last couple of weeks. My only slight concern is replayability – you do burn through the question cards pretty quickly. Realistically, you’re probably going to get five or six good plays before you start recognising too many of the answers, which is a bit of a shame.
We originally played this in a Board Game Cafe but liked it so much I ordered a copy while we were still sat at the table!
Strangely, there are actually two versions of the game out there – a beige box (the one we have) and an orange box,. But they’re exactly the same game, with the exact same questions. There’s no “second edition” or updated set of cards, which is a bit frustrating because we’d definitely buy more questions if they were available.
Overall, “Don’t Fall For It” is a really fun trivia game that manages to balance things out so kids and adults can play together without one person running away with it. If you’re after a quick, silly, family-friendly trivia experience, this is a brilliant choice. But if you want a trivia game you can play dozens of times without repetition, this one might not quite have the staying power.
*If you want a game intended for dozens of plays you will run out of question cards
