Dungeon Crawler Magazine
Aaron Booth
July/August 2002
USA

Out of the Box has been one of my favorite (I should say #1 choice) card game companies around. I was first hooked with Apples to Apples, then played Bosworth and Shipwrecked. I picked up My Word! and Blink, and had fun with those for the past year. This year at Origins 2002, I got copies of the two newest games: Squint and Switch.

I got to demo both, but I found Squint to be the crazy and fun one of the two. Trying to match shapes to what you want someone to say is harder than you think. Trying to find the shapes you need is just as difficult as getting players to say the answer.

Later when Friends and I tried it out, we had a blast blurting out answers and laughing at what we thought it was supposed to be. Another group of friends played later, and again, crazy answers, lots of laughs and another great evening. Squinting really does help when looking at the shapes!

Design: 
The game is rather fun with millions of hours of replay value. It’s built similar (yet not) to Pictionary. The “builder” can only answer yes or no aloud, point to the cards (specific spots or around them), and do slight animations, provided the cards are not picked up from the table. There is a timer, and die with three 1’s, two 2’s and one 3. This determines the difficulty of the answer. There is a set of cards (with a front side and back side) and three answers on it (Ex. 1- Van, 2- Bun, 3- Grave). After a number is rolled the timer starts and the builder has to form the answer using the tiles and points are awarded to the guessing player and the builder (this way, he/she has to do a good job in order to win). Building passes to the next player as play continues.

Appearance: 
It comes with everything you need: a die, timer, tiles, point tokens, and answer cards. It doesn’t have spectacular art in it, nor are the tiles that impressive. IT’S A SIMPLE GAME! That’s the best part of it. The tiles are supposed to be simple, the cards have words, and the instruction booklet…..the rules.

Fun: 
I’d say never-ending fun! It has 72 Shape Tiles, and 168 Answer Cards. Each Card is double sided  with 3 answers….you do the math! If you enjoy simple games and enjoy having fun with friends, this is the game for you!

Setup Time: 
Like most Out of the Box games, quick (like 5 minutes). You figure about 2 minutes to get all the cards and tiles spread out, and 3 minutes to explain the rules. If it takes longer than this, you should take those monkeys back to the zoo and get some real friends!

Overall:   1/2
A great game, taking little more than 20 minutes to play with a small amount of people (or monkeys). When building, remember to have fun. When guessing, remember to SQUINT!

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