Get your brain connections well oiled before starting this game of Choice Words. Both options, Scratch Play and Match Play are loads of fun as you exercise categories, and associate words with slogans, names, phrases, terms and titles. Pick a card from Scratch Play, announce the word and turn over the timer. List words that include the root word (suffixes can be added) and get a point for each original answer. “Wind” inspired windward, down wind, whirlwind, Windy City (should have known a Chicago boy would think of that!), out of wind, and windproof. It’s so enlightening to hear answers that weren’t even on your radar, but you wish they were. The fun ensues when players debate an answer or even formally object to scratch the answer. My friend and I were most successful at this option but found Match Play addictive as we tried so hard to just get one answer in common! Now you get a point for answers in common so some thought is put into your fellow players’ character and background. Three words are given with blanks to complete. I thought surely “bad___” could only be “bad breath” but “bad boy” came up, and “____pick” had to be “tooth pick” unless you were playing with a former baseball player where it became “draft pick.” Language skills are tapped as players think in word associations, trying out what goes with “white” before or after it to come up with “Snow White” to “White as snow,” which are as different as a cartoon character and frozen ice crystals. This game can definitely keep the mind sharp!
Available at MindWare. Click here
