‘Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks?’ Pits People Against Pebbles

What is Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks?

Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks? is a trivia game in which the human players compete against a pair of rocks (yes really) to see who is the smartest.

Components:

• 100 Question Cards
• Two Numbered Fake Rocks
• One Blank Fake Rock
• One Woden Meeple
• One Game Board
• Instructions

How Do You Play Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks?

Setup

To set up the game, place the Game Board on the table where everyone can see it, then place the blank rock on the Rock Start Space and the wooden meeple on the Human Start Space.

Shuffle the question cards and place them in a stack, question side up. Then place the two numbered rocks inside the game box and close the lid.

Gameplay

One of the human players takes the top card from the deck and reads one of the three questions aloud. The answer to every question in the game is either 0, 1, or 2 and the human players must decide as a team on which answer they are choosing.

Once the human players have chosen their answer, they then shake the box containing the two numbered rocks and open it. The number of number marks the players can see if the rocks answer, and again this will be either 0, 1 or 2.

The player who read the question now turns over the card and reveals the correct answer. Any team that answered correctly, either humans or rocks, moves up place up the Game Board.

Winning the Game

The first team to reach the Finish space on the Game Board is the winner. It is entirely possible for this to be a tie, in which case additional questions are asked Sudden Death style to determine a winning team.

Should You Buy Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks?

Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks? is an interesting and unique take on what could otherwise be a fairly generic trivia game.

The randomized way the rocks determine their answer means there’s a nice balance of luck vs knowledge required to win here, and with every question only having three possible answers you’ll always have a one in three chance of answering correctly even if you haven’t got a clue.

Playing a trivia game against opponents who have noticeably more or less general knowledge than you always feels unbalanced and can easily be un-enjoyable. Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks? takes away than unbalance by adding in cooperation between all the human players and makes the game a lot more fun than many other trivia games I have played in the past.

Although Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks? is recommended for kids ages 12 and up, the limited answers and element of luck allows even young kids to play and actually feel like they have a chance at winning. The same mechanism also means that while the box states that the game is for two players and up, you could easily play solo if you so desired.

This is a trivia game at its heart so it’s never going to be the most unique game you’ll come across this year, but playing as a team against the rocks gives this a fun twist and solves many of the issues with the trivia game genre which makes Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks? absolutely worth checking out.

GeekMom received this game for review purposes.