Cantaloupe is the Money-Melon: A Sit-Down with North Star Games

Article By: FuzzyKitty

On the way over to the North Star Games booth, I was told of an epic tragedy worthy of the Bard himself. This tale of woe involved several heroes from one common website against various villainous bands in a battle of Wits and Wagers during the previous Origins only to achieve, well, it wasn’t first place. Perhaps a second coming of the warriors from Spewgilist, now with their newly recruited ringer (myself), was in store.

We were cordially greeted by the designers themselves, Dominic Crapuchettes and Satish Pillalamari. They gave a brief rundown on the three offerings North Star Games had to present: the previously reviewed Wits and Wagers, Satish’s demo of Cluzzle, and Dominic’s demo of Say Anything.

If you’re interested in Wits and Wagers, please check out last year’s review of it.

A game of Say Anything was going on at the time, which certainly caught our interest. Players wrote down answers to a particular question and then bet on who had the best answer, picked secretly by the question’s proctor. Players score one point if their answer is chosen and one point for each chip they had placed on the chosen answer. The proctor then scores one point, up to three, for each chip that had been placed by other players on his selected answer.

Each card of questions has five questions that vary greatly in subject. There were questions that just asked for humorous answers (“What’s the worst thing to yell out in church?”) to very inoffensive ones (“What’s the best ice cream flavor?”). Dominic explained to us that they wanted Say Anything to entertain regardless of audience. One could play it with college kids or with their grandparents and everyone would enjoy themselves, a concept that party games dream of having.

Say Anything’s gameplay reminded me of Apples to Apples, players giving answers to a judge to decide on the best one. However, the creativity in giving personalized answers separates the two into clearly distinctive games. I suppose you could answer one question with “Anne Frank” to see if the trump cards follow over.

We decided to take a shot at North Star Games’ premiere title, Cluzzle, against Satish and two others. Cluzzle is built around the concept of sculpting poorly with Play-doh, an idea most of us are quite familiar with. Each player gets a card of ten words and must create one of them. In my case, I decided on “lamp” because it was rather easy to throw one lump on top of another and add little lines for the light. Other objects included two balls (Pluto and a Canteloupe), something resembling a spiked pie (Zoo), and what might be a broken railroad track (Suspenders). Then each player has two minutes to ask up to three yes/no questions about the others’ creations or, most likely, abominations. Common questions included “Is that larger than my fist?” and “Is that man-made?” I found myself never wanting to ask obvious questions because I didn’t want to risk someone else stealing a possible correct answer from me. Finally, each player then writes down what he believes everyone else’s objects to be. If an object is guessed correctly, both the sculptor and the guesser get one point.

If an object is not guessed, another round of questions starts followed by guesses. If an object is guessed in round two, the guess is worth two points. Once again, if there is still at least one mind-boggling item, a third round starts where guesses are worth three points. After three rounds, the game ends and anyone who still has a mystery object gets zero points. Therefore, the longer an object lasts without being guessed, the more points it is worth. However, the creator still needs to have object identified, so making amorphous masses for every object is not the best strategy.

In our particular game, the lamp only made it one round. Fortunately, I was able to deduce Satish’s ball to be a cantaloupe in the last round to barely eek out a win, and reclaim last year’s lost honor. Overall, Cluzzle has one of the most hilarious and original concepts and was a blast to play.

Satish ended by giving us the scoop on North Star Games’ future plan. Say Anything is due out in mid-July and they are currently in development of a new “family/light strategy” title to add to their catalog. Also, don’t be surprised to see Wits and Wagers appearing on Xbox 360 Live Arcade.

Throughout our stay at the North Star Games booth, they had a prize wheel for the winners of demos to spin. One could get a free t-shirt or booth credit (which I received). However, there was one space entitled “Mystery Gimmick.” Whenever the wheel was spun, particular North Star Games employees would go wide-eyed and get a horrified look whenever the wheel was close to landing on the gimmick, expanding our curiosity. In the end however, the Mystery Gimmick was never seen and remains just that, a mystery.