How many things within a category can you name in 30-seconds? Playing Hit List, by Gamewright, certainly gives you that “it’s on the tip of my tongue” feeling or the “I’m drawing a complete blank!” feeling. Hit List is a quick and fun game where players are divided into two teams. Teams work to gain as many points as possible by naming items within a category. Act fast though, you only have 30 seconds! How about those categories? Some are simple, like condiments, internal organs, or dinosaurs (which I particularly knocked out of the park, thank you very much). But others are so specific, it’s tough to even come up with one, like characters with numbers in their names, states with a town named Springfield, or WWII Allies (unless you’re my father-in-law and you have a plethora of random information, specifically in the history and TV/movie categories). But, not all the items are listed on your card. You only get points if you “hit” one of the six items on the “list.” Putting on my speech-language pathologist hat now, Hit List practices rapid naming. Rapid naming is an important language skill that deals with word-retrieval, or a person’s ability to think of the right word when he/she is in a conversation. Think of the brain as a giant filing cabinet for words, a type storage system. As you sort through your filling cabinet, you’re exercising that quick thinking ability, firing neurons, and practicing language and literacy, while having fun. Hit List is recommended for people 12+, but if you’re playing with your teens, you could opt to filter out some categories to make it a bit easier so that players get a few “hits” on each list (or at least some good guesses). Our crew had a blast, so it’s an absolute keeper for any game night.
Available at Gamewright. Click here
By Erika Cardamone MS, CCC-SLP
Speech-language pathologist, Mom, toy reviewer, speaker, foodie, runner
