Use Words, Sounds, and Gestures in Party Game Time's Up! Family Edition

Can your teammates guess the word "pancake" based on your clues? Try using only one word clues, or see if you can get them to guess it with gestures!

Time's Up! Family Edition is a clue-giving, team-based party game that plays in 60 minutes and is designed for three players and up.

Gameplay

Players split up into teams of equal players — the rulebook specifies that the ideal is two teams of two, but you can play with more people and teams. 40 cards are dealt out evenly to all the players, and then an additional two cards are given to each player. Each player looks at either the orange or the blue words on their cards (everyone must agree which before the game starts) and discards two of them. All the cards that were kept by all the players are then shuffled together into a deck.

During the game, players on a team will take turns being the clue giver. Each time the deck of cards is passed to a team, a new person takes on the role of clue giver.

The game is played in three rounds. During the first round, when a team has the deck, the 30 second sand timer is started, and the clue giver draws the top card of the deck and tries to give clues about word written on the card. He may not say any part of the word in his clue, but he may also use gestures and sound effects. He may not pass on a card. When a card is guessed, he adds it to his team’s score pile. Once the timer runs out, the clue giver passes the deck to the other team. Both teams continue to pass the deck back and forth until all the cards have been guessed. Teams then count the cards in their score piles, earning one point per card, and write down their points for the round. It is now time for round two.

All the cards are taken back and reshuffled. Round two plays the same as round one, using the same words for players to guess, only this time the clue giver may only say one single word as a clue. Again, gestures and sound effects are still allowed. This time the clue giver may choose to pass on a card and draw a different one.

The third and final round is again the same as the previous rounds, only in this instance no words may be given as clues, and the clue giver can only use sounds and gestures. The team with the most points at the end of the third round wins the game.

Review

Time's Up! Family Edition is a great party game. It keeps everyone invested since players want to watch the other team’s turn so that they know all the cards in the deck. The escalation between rounds is also really fun. You think it will be easy to remember all the cards by the third round, but there’s always something players struggle to remember.

Unlike other similar games, the prompt cards didn’t seem to have any real people on them (at least not that we saw). Nor were there any song or film titles that we encountered. There was an occasional fictional character, but these were very well-known ones such as Captain Hook, and even these were quite rare. All the cards are things that you can be 95% certain everyone at the table will know, and that really helped set the game apart from others in the genre. It’s always annoying when playing a clue game to have no idea what that song is that everyone just guessed.

One flaw in the design of the game is that it’s ideal to play with an even number of players. In most party games, you can have uneven teams, but it does feel a little unfair here to have an extra brain working to remember all the words. The rulebook suggests a competitive variant for an odd number of players, with only one person guessing at a time, the player to his left acting as clue giver, and points shared between clue giver and clue receiver. This could work, but it’s just going to be more fun as a team game.

There are other games designed like this, but Time's Up! Family Edition does a solid job with their word choices that makes this a great version of this type of party game. The score tracker is also included on the inside cover of the box, which is a neat little design choice, and the cards are nice and sturdy to hold up to lots of replay — and this is a game players are definitely going to want to play more than once.

Pros: Almost all players will recognize all the words, great escalation between rounds, good production quality

Cons: Rules for an odd number of players are a little clunky

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.