Knowbody Knows

Knowbody Knows, for example, exactly how many hours Tom Hanks sleeps in a week. Probably not even Mr. Hanks knows that. So, OK, so you don't know. You can still guess.

Now, can you also guess what everybody else is going to guess? Can you guess if your guess will be, heaven forfend, highest or lowest? Actually, you can. Because, see, it's only a guess, and, as the designers of the game are so ready to remind us, Knowbody, actually, Knows.

Everybody gets a different pad of paper - each pad color-coordinated with the player's peg-like playing piece. Each sheet of each pad perforated to easily be torn into slips. Why do I go to such great lengths to describe a score pad? Because it's a devilishly clever way to make the game work as well as it does. See, that way, all you have to do is write down your guess (did I tell you that all the questions can be answered with numbers?) so all the answers are on different slips of paper, that can be sorted from highest to lowest, and you take off the highest and lowest and everybody can tell, at a glance, whose guesses are in the middle (and hence scoreworthy).

And not a negilgible bit of deviltry is added by the design of the question cards them very selves. Each question is framed with a blank, like: "How much would ____ pay for a pill that: A) Improves Memory Two-fold, B) Doubles the Power of Sleep, C) Eliminates Unwanted Hair Forever, D) You Pick." When it's your turn to read the question, you fill in the blank with the name (did I tell you about the list of 12 names, the one everyone makes at the beginning of the game, using their own names if they want, filling in the extra blanks with any name they think would be fun thinking about?) that is selected by the roll of a 12-sided die. This keeps the questions interesting and potentially open-ended. It also made us comment, separately and collectively, when discussing a particular answer and the significance thereof, "It really doesn't matter. Knowbody Knows."

We played. We laughed. We experienced the kind of fun the Major Fun award was designed to be awarded for.