Teams of Enemies

From: Big Toe Games List Price: $30 Players: 4-8 Playing Time: 45-60 minutes  Type of game: Trivia Skill level: 8 Complexity: 5  Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 25, Winter 2001

With the wild success enjoyed by Cranium, a party game that’s equal parts charades, Pictionary, Sculprit, Mindtrap, and Hummmble, it’s no surprise that other games are poaching that Frankenstein formula. Teams of Enemies explores different variations on trivia themes, amalgamating concepts recently seen on prime-time game shows.

There are five different game types, chosen by the roll of a die. One is Greed— given a list of items, choose the ones that belong to the given category. One is Millionaire’s fastest-finger round, where you must arrange items in the proper order. Another is similar to Hot Potato or Outburst, asking players to name items within a category. The last two games are straightforward multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank trivia.

The twist alluded to in the title is that although each player scores for himself, questions are answered by dynamically-formed teams. After the current player, or captain, reads the question, he decides how many answers his team will attempt. The higher the number, the farther winning team members advance. Players then decide whether or not they’ll join the captain’s team. Anyone who does must give a correct answer when the turn comes around to them. If the team succeeds they all advance, with the captain moving twice as far. If anyone on the team flubs, however, nobody advances and the flubber moves backwards. This leads to obvious questions about intentionally sabotaging a team to prevent someone from taking an enormous lead, which in a particularly competitive group could create a tedious stalemate situation. “Doctor, it hurts when I do this…”

When someone reaches the home stretch the game unfortunately shifts into single-player trivia mode until someone wins. This is the least intriguing part of the game and clashes with the whole team notion the early game is built upon. The trivia questions themselves seemed easy to us, even the ones at the highest of the three difficulty levels. The other three categories are much better, and a refreshing change from other trivia games. The designers should have played to that strength, rather than copping out at the end.

Aside from a minor bungle— category divider cards are too tall to remain in the closed card box without being crushed, forcing you to laboriously reinsert them every time— Teams of Enemies is a high-quality production. The biggest problem is that the trivia-per-minute ratio is quite low. It takes time to decide how many answers to go for, whether or not to jump on board, what to answer, and so forth. Each game consists of barely a handful of questions. You may want to double the length of the scoring track for a more satisfying game.