Ransom Notes - The Ridiculous Word Magnet Party Game, 3+ Players

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We also love that the game has infinite possibilities. You can never have a repeat answer to a prompt, and there are also tons of prompt cards. I recommend it 100%." I dearly wish I had taken more pictures, but here are two entries for the prompt “Summarize the Star Wars movies:” Starting with the player who finished their submission last, each player will read it out loud to the rest of the players. During this round three responses were created. Each player reads out their response to the other players. Judging the Responses Not really. While a majority of prompt cards are certainly suitable for all audiences, there are quite a few that are definitely not. BUT, if you do want to make it family friendly, pulling about 15-30% of the cards should make the game totally PG and playable for all! The most fun part is that there is no restriction on how many or few words to use in responses, and the prompts range from straightforward "write a new slogan for Applebee's" to nearly insane complexity for the limited space and vocabulary available: "write a note to explain to the waitress that the bathroom fan is broken". Some ppl squeeze many tiles onto the plate in an attempt to be clear, while others opt for pithy minimalism. Results in both directions are hilariously stilted and creatively vague.

Turn over the first challenge card, read it aloud to everyone and then frantically begin making your ‘ransom note’ type response. There are a few suggested ways to judge who wins the round but mostly I play with a friendly bunch so we take an honest vote accepting if someone else’s response is genuinely better than our own we vote for it. However, if you are playing with particularly competitive people who will always vote for their own, even if it’s rubbish there are other suggested ways to choose a winner to avoid creating war not peace.I love family games, but I’m horrible at learning new rules. Here are a few other games I’ve reviewed:

The suggested time limit of 90 seconds per round is too dang short! We ended up just giving everyone as much time as they needed to come up with an answer. And by “everyone” I mean “me,” because I am old and have lost my brain sparkle. Although I think I wasn’t giving myself enough magnets. Here is what the recommended number of magnets for a round looks like (“three pinches,” or about 75 magnets): There are also some prefixes and suffixes in the mix, that didn’t happen to make it into this collection. PLAYERS: While the game is made for 3-6 players, it’s equally hilarious when larger groups team up together. 30-90 min play time. Is it appropriate for everyone? Not really. While a majority of prompt cards are certainly suitable for all audiences, there are quite a few that are definitely not. BUT, if you do want to make it family friendly, pulling about 15-30% of the cards should make the game totally PG and playable for all!

Rated 15+, but make your responses as clean or dirty as you like — it all depends on who you play with! Designed for 3-6 players, Ransom Notes is perfect for game night groups who want a game that’s as silly as it is clever. So aside from potentially running out of word magnets and not having more displays to show your sentences on I’m sure you could play with a bigger player count than 6.

The submission cards are made of tin so they’re magnetic, but not too magnetic. Your words won’t get messed up when you make your face-down submission and you won’t spend much time wiping them off when the round is over. With 250 absurd prompt cards and new word magnets each turn, Ransom Notes is tears-streaming-down-your-face funny every time you play. A few of the cards pretty explicit (“Walk us through the masturbation process,” for instance, and “Ask your boss for a promotion in exchange for sexual favors”). It’s easy enough to just toss any cards and magnets you don’t want in your game (the FAQs say about 15-30% of the cards are not PG), but it’s something to know about ahead of time, depending on who’s going to play. The judge will consider all of the submissions and decide which one they think is the best. They can choose any of the submissions including their own.Here’s a selection of cards I drew randomly, to give you an idea of what kind of prompts you might encounter: Throughout the game you cannot replenish the word magnets in front of you. Thus the players have less words to choose from as the game progresses. Drug use, personal demons, wild episodes, and more. Side Effects is a "take that" card game where players race to treat all the diseases in their psyche with medication and therapy. Each round begins with the top Prompt Card being flipped over. It doesn’t matter who flips it over. One of the players will read the text on the card out loud. The round then begins. If the Prompt Card refers to the most recent judge, your submission should relate to the player that was the judge in the previous round. For this round all of the players will write a jingle for a toupee store. The game continues until one of the players can’t make a sentence with the word magnets that they have remaining.