If you like charades, and games like Time’s Up or Monikers, and you want something similar but with a little bit more challenge, you might want to check out Rabble! Will your team be able to guess all your random words and phrases, or will you fumble under the pressure of the time limit? Let’s check it out.

What Is It?

Team Play – Players will be on teams and will need to work together to give each other clues each round (words+acting, 1 word only, acting only) to guess all of their cards.

Party Game / Charades – Play is boisterous, silly, and wild. It is a great choice for a very casual game night with groups of various sizes who just want to be loud and wacky. One round is purely about acting, so players need to be comfortable getting up, making gestures, and acting cards out as best they can. Players will also be given challenges throughout the game, to make things harder for them, and sillier all around.

General Knowledge – Some things that need to be guessed are very general (such as “family vacation” or “volcano”) while others will rely on players’ knowledge of pop culture (i.e. “Game of Thrones”) or history (i.e. “Al Capone”)

Who Is It For?

  • 4 or More Players – There is a less than 4 player variant, but the game shines when playing the intended way, with 2 teams.
  • Ages 16 and Up – There are plenty of cards that would work with younger players, but you may need to go through the deck to determine which ones they would be able to guess. The game is great for teens, college students, and adults of all ages, looking for something silly. There are also “naughty cards” included for those interested in using them
  • Fans of charades, clue-giving, and doing funny challenges

Variants

Cooperative – If you have less than 4 players, you can play cooperatively, where you just deal out 20 cards for the group, plus 1 challenge card to each player. You need to finish all 3 rounds in as few turns as possible, and everyone must complete their challenge card at some point. This version is fine if you’re really looking to play this with 2 or 3, but the game is clearly intended for more players, and plays much better as such

PROS

  • Aesthetics – I like the color scheme of the game, the art on those cards that have images are very nice, and the graphic design is good
  • Components – The game is just cards, but they are overall nice quality
  • No plastic wrap on the box, and the tape on the sides came off clean!
  • Rules – Short and sweet and easy to learn the game from
  • Smooth gameplay
  • The challenges add another layer of silliness to the game which is fun
  • Plenty of variety in the cards, and a good amount of cards that it’ll be a while before you play through them all
  • Easy to score

CONS

  • While I like the challenge cards, there was quite a range of difficulty on them; I thought things like “speak in an accent” or “speak in a low voice” were notably easier than “don’t use any filler words (i.e. “like”/”umm”)” Since they are dealt at random, it can give one team a big advantage
  • Likewise, the team decks are dealt at random – players are not selecting the cards they are going to be guessing. Some cards are longer or more difficult than others (i.e phrases or show titles versus single words) and sometimes one team can get luckier than the other
  • The scoring system is very easy, once a team finishes their deck, their score is however many cards the other team did not guess. However, it was a little sad to be the losing team and just have a score of zero. Similar games give each card a point value, allowing the team that is behind to still have a score, which feels a little bit better than just having zero

Final Thoughts

I don’t have the opportunity to play rowdy party games very often, but when I do, this is the type of game I gravitate towards. I love things like Password and I love giving clues and even acting things out in a ridiculous way to get people to guess it.

The game isn’t perfect, I do have a few small issues with it here and there, but I think they’re easy to work around, and even if you get an unlucky deal of team or challenge cards, the game is still a ton of fun, and it’s easy enough to deal out a new set of cards and play again! Switch up the teams while you’re at it too!

If you are already a fan of Time’s Up or Monikers, and the challenges sound like a fun time for your group, this is definitely worth taking a closer look at.

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 7/10

Designer – George Li
Artists – Various
Publisher – Midnight Froyo
MSRP – $25.00
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

If you like what I do, consider Supporting Me.