In Cranium Family Edition, you roll the die at the end of your turn, after you successfully complete an activity. The color of the space your mover piece is on matches the color of the Cranium activity card you'll play. At the start of the game, or any time you are on a purple space, your team can choose from any one of the four card.
| Publisher(s) | Hasbro |
|---|---|
| Players | 4+ |
| Setup time | approx. 2 minutes |
| Playing time | > 35 minutes |
| Random chance | Medium |
| Skill(s) required | Creativity, General knowledge |
Cranium is a party game created by Whit Alexander and Richard Tait in 1998, after Richard spent a weekend playing games with another family and recognized the need for a game involving a variety of skills. Richard left his job at Microsoft, convincing his friend and co-worker Whit Alexander to join him in the creation of Cranium. Cranium, manufactured by Hasbro subsidiary Cranium, Inc., is billed as 'The Game for Your Whole Brain'. Unlike many other party games, Cranium includes a wide variety of activities. Giorgio Davanzo handles packaging and branding for the game, and the artwork is by cartoonist Gary Baseman.
Board[edit]
The board is laid out as a circuit, consisting of different color spaces. Each color corresponds to a question card category. Purple 'Planet Cranium' spaces give the team their choice of category.
Expansions and spinoffs[edit]
- Booster Boxes: boxes of cards (and clay) sold separately from the game that contain a new deck of each type of card. As of 2007, Booster Boxes 1 and 2 are available, along with a special New York edition pack.
- Cadoo: a children's version of the game that has some elements of tic-tac-toe.
- Conga: a version with a slightly older target audience than Cadoo. Incorporates a musical timer of Cranium, designed for two or more players to play cooperatively.
- Cranium Hullabaloo
- Cranium Kabookii: a video game version available on the Wii platform. Activities comprise a mixture of some from the original game and new games better suited for a video game environment.
- Cranium Scribblish: played very much like the game of telephone. Players start by drawing a caption card from the deck and must draw the caption, then pass to another player who captions what they believe the other person has drawn, then draw said caption. Winners correctly guess which drawing started as their own.
- Cranium The Family Fun Game: a game similar to the original Cranium with some minor changes.
- Cranium Turbo Edition: a version of Cranium designed for a faster game.
- Cranium Wow: a similar game to the original with new cards and activities from Cranium Turbo.
- Cranium Pop 5: a pop-culture focused version released in 2006 where one team assigns the point value (ranked from 1-5) the other team will earn depending on how the other team guesses the clue (through acting, drawing, humming, sculpting, or using letter cubes).
- Cranium Brain Breaks: 200 one-minute mini games.
- Cranium SpongeBob SquarePants Edition
- Cranium Partyland Park: Is a children's game by Vtech, and Vsmile
External links[edit]
- Cranium at BoardGameGeek
- Cranium. Boardgaming.com.
Toys R Us
Provide each team with the right supplies. After you've established teams, there are certain supplies you'll need to play Cranium. Make sure all the teams have the right supplies before the game begins.Cranium Family Game Online
- Choose a playing piece. Your copy of Cranium should come with a variety of pieces. Different versions of Cranium will have different kinds of game pieces. Allow each team to choose the piece he or her wants to play Cranium.
- You will also make sure every team member has a paper and a pen or pencil. Cranium should come with some paper and pencils in the box. If you run out, you can use any kind of scrap paper you have lying around your house. Just make sure all players have materials to write with as you'll need them for a variety of activities in Cranium.[2]
- Cranium boxes usually come with a small bit of clay, used in certain activities. If the clay is missing or dried out, you could replace it with a bit of play-dough purchased at the supermarket. You could also simply not play cards that require clay.