What's That On My Head?

From: Creative Therapeutics List Price: $25 Players: 3-6 Playing Time: 60 minutes  Type of game: Logic Skill level: 8 Complexity: 3  Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 24, September 2000

Way back in issue #15, I wrote a Eulogy for Robert Abbott’s out-of-print deduction game Code 777. That game was a descendant of one of Abbott’s earlier efforts, a little-known game called What’s That On My Head?. A fan of the game has now revised and, with Abbott’s blessing, republished the original game.

This is the third game I know of to incorporate headbands with cards stuck into them (the others being Amnesia/Befuddle and, appropriately enough, Hedbanz). In all of them, the object is to identify the cards in a player’s own headband. In this case, players wear three cards from a deck of forty, each with a value between one and nine.

A separate deck contains questions used to provide information about what people are wearing. Each player in turn reads and answers one of these questions about the numbers he sees on other peoples’ heads. By analyzing these answers and comparing them against what the numbers he can see, a player can often make deductions about what numbers must be on his own head. If, for example, Mark says he can see all of the four even numbers but Jason can only see a 2, 6, and 8 (none of them on Mark’s head), Jason knows he must have at least one 4 on his own head.

One of the major revisions from the game’s 1960s incarnation is that each card features four different questions suitable for various age or experience levels. These range from kiddie questions like “If the player on your left has a 5, clap your hands. If not, stamp your feet” to more sophisticated questions, such as “Of the nine numbers, how many appear only once?” The idea is to make the game approachable for all ages and skill levels, but only if everyone in the game is on equal footing. You can’t, for example, handicap someone by mixing the question levels.

In Code 777, you never get any information when you’re the questioner. That’s not true here. Some cards instruct the reader to roll 1-3 ten-sided dice, then answer a question about the resulting values (“Is any player’s total higher than the total of the dice?”, etc). Rolling a 0 on any of the dice lets a player skip his turn as reader, passing the card on to the next player. Rolling a pair or three of a kind gives a player the same benefit, plus the opportunity to take a free guess at one or two of his numbers. There’s a good variety of question types here. Some are far more useful than others, but often their utility depends on what you already know.

A player can guess at his numbers at any time. A correct answer earns a point, a wrong guess loses one. Either way, the guesser trades his cards for a brand new set. The first to reach a certain score (we usually play to 3) wins.

The obvious question to answer is how What’s That On My Head compares to Code 777. I think the new game is more challenging and playable than the old, but somehow less intriguing. Code 777 had two properties— color and frequency— which WTOMH lacks. Those additional dimensions made more types of deductions possible. The pyramidal structure and note sheet were more interesting and usable than WTOMH’s equivalents. I particularly miss the ability to eliminate a number simply because all of them have been seen already. With four of each number in the deck, and the deck reshuffled every time someone gets new numbers, it almost never happens in WTOMH. This may be tweakable, however, by not shuffling until only a quarter or a third of the deck remains.

On the other hand, WTOMH gives players more control over their game. In Code 777, players are completely at the mercy of the cards. If the right question doesn’t come up (or worse, comes up on that player’s turn as reader), it can take forever to get enough information to make a correct guess. There’s more useless information going around in WTOMH, especially with the repeated questions, but a lucky die roll can let players dig for their own choice of information. The ability to do so is still determined by random chance, but there are more chances than in Code 777.

If you like deduction games and don’t already own Code 777, What’s That On My Head? is a must-buy. For owners of the other game, this is a variation on the same theme. If you want a greater challenge and don’t mind less flashy components, WTOMH is worthwhile.