Games Review- 'Antakshari' and 'The Bakwaas Game' by MadRat Games

Hello World !!

How have all of you been?
This is the first time I am reviewing something like this on the blog. I was sent two very different board games from MadRat Games.
Here is what I thought of them-

A few things you need to know about MadRat Games-

• Award of Excellence - App4India, TechSparks 2011
• Winner IIM Calcutta Biz Plan Competition - "Ideas to Implementation 2009"
• Creators of Aksharit-The World's First Hindi Word Building Board game. Aksharit now has a mobile and computer version too.

The first game I received is the classic game of Antakshari that every Indian has played sometime or the other in their life. 

Priced at- 125 INR

Contents- The pack comes with an instruction sheet and a pack of 60 cards with different types of topics on them. 

 Number of players - Unlimited

 Age - No bar. Anybody can play.

rule sheet

 Time - No time limit.

The pretty cards

 How to play-

• Each player or team gets to pick one card from a random arrangement.
• Sing a song accordingly. for example, if your card has "Kajol+ Shah Rukh Khan" written on it, you have to sing a song which features these two actors. Or if your card has the picture of eyes (ankhein) ,heart (dil) and bangles (choodi or kangna), you can pick any one of them and sing a song that has the word in the first few lines.
• Each correct song would fetch the marks written on the card.
• The person / team with the highest score at the end of the game (which should be 4-5 rounds) is the winner.

Pros-

• This is a multi-player game and a lot of people can play at the same time.
• A lot many options and variety (the pack has 60 cards) like - songs with a particular letter, dumb charade cards with movie names, actor couples, particular scenes and many more.
• Needs nothing more than just the pack of cards to play. No special skills required apart from some basic knowledge about Bollywood songs (which am pretty sure everybody has ).
• No age bar. everybody can play.

 Cons-

None I could find.

This game is a great idea for passing away your idle time during long distance train journeys and during picnic gatherings. I had a great time playing this with my classmates during a long break between our classes at the university.

The second game I received is a completely new one. It is called The Bakwaas Game (or the nonsense game)

 Priced at-  225 INR

Contents- One pack of 55 cards, a set of letter tokens, 4 pencils, one minute sand timer, rules sheets and the letter pad for keeping record of the marks.

 Age - 10+ years

Number of players- 2 to 8

That little blue white thing you see is the one minute sand timer. that is my personal favorite item from the box. 

How to play-

• The topic cards each have two topics on them. The letter tokens are to be put int a bag.
• Shuffle the cards and pick any topic card.
• Similarly pick a random letter from the token bag.
• Select the combination which is agreed by all. For example the card says "Things to do when you turn 18/ Things to find in a canteen" and the first option is selected from the two unanimously. The letter token lets suppose is "G". Start the sand timer when everyone is ready.
• Now write as many one or two worded examples of the topics you chose. For example for the above combination you could write GET MARRIED, GET DRIVING LICENCE , GET HIGH and so on and so forth. These are the logical examples I could think of. You can make up any inane bakwaas. The more unbelievable and out of the box the idea is, the better.
• Stop scribbling when the time runs out and all the sand is settled on one side of the timer.
• You get points for every unique bakwaas example you wrote. That is if any other player wrote exactly the same example as yours, it gets struck off. Nobody scores for that idea. You get 10 points for just the unique ones.
• The scoring is the best part. For getting a score for each bakwaas example you wrote, you have to convince your opponents of its validity. Like you could say 18 is the legal age to consume alcohol. So I might as well decide to get high and, hence, the bakwaas is valid. If everyone agrees, you score, else not.
• The person with the highest score at the end of 5-7 rounds wins.

Pros-

• A very innovative idea. It is like a punch of poker and that childhood game almost everybody played where we had to list names, places, things, animals and birds with a particular letter.
• A great way to make kids think out of the box and learn new words.
• A lot of variations possible. It is almost an infinite combination. There are 55 cards/110 topics and 26 alphabets. Yeah, you can permute to get the number of variations possible. Am too lazy to do that for you. 
• The box comes with pencils, timer and scoring and writing pads. So, you don't have to run to get stationery for everyone while playing.

Cons-

• The only con I think is that the rules can be a little too complicated for kids. I had a hard time trying to explain it to my niece and my neighbor's kids. Well, you could also say that I'm really bad at explaining things out to kids. 

Learning words was never more fun. If you have a kiddo's birthday in line and are clueless what to gift them, this is your best bet. Forget the old school cars and doll sets and give them something more substantial from the MadRat Games indoor games galore.

Overall experience- MadRat Games have come up with these amazing array of games for people of all ages. the games are very innovative and highly enjoyable. A must try for all indoor games lovers.

You can buy the two games and many other amazing games from MadRat Games on Flipkart, Shopo and Hoopos. These games are also available at retail stores across the country.
You can also know more about their games from their website and join their Facebook page for more updates from them.

P.S.- Apologies to the entire MadRat Games team for the delay in posting the review and thanks a lot for the patience regarding the same.