alouicious

I have owned this game for over a year, and have not realized its inherent awesome-ness till GenCon, when I played it with a group of 10 people for two 6 hour stints of amazing. The game is incredibly easy to teach, even to people who have never played covert back-stabby games like werewolf or mafia. I may have muddied the waters for all the new players in my group as I am loathe to refer to the spies as the ‘bad guys’- we had a whole back story about how they are just misunderstood and working for the greater good.
Knowing how to read a person is helpful for this game but not actually necessary, if you have a more than fair capacity for logic puzzles. The addition of the plot cards really opens you up to a game of intense deceit, and gales of laughter when true alliances come out.
If you have more than 5 gamer friends, you should play this game. And definitely bring it with to any event where you can coerce 10 people into sitting in for an hour or so.

My first introduction to this game was in the middle of the night at GenCon, and it was Amazing.
The game is like a 1940s serial action/adventure, the same genre that the Indiana Jones movies built on. Every player gets to be a treasure hunter with different degrees of expertise in 4 specific skills. Most of the heroes are fairly well balanced. The ones that are over/under powered in one skill make up for it with a special (dis)ability. For example, Dr. Zhukov is a Russian scientist who has an insane amount of cunning, but that is more than made up for by the fact that it is harder for him to succeed at any combat roll.
The game mechanics are easy to learn even if you’ve never encountered them before. The skill level of each character is how many d6 they roll for each specific skill test. The danger they are facing specifies what would constitute a success. There are even objects and allies that can be bought that will enhance any skills that the player finds lacking.
Players get to face dangers that turn into cliffhangers if they can’t beat them, and sneak around or fight off Nazis and mobsters, even sneak aboard a zeppelin to steal some gold straight from the Nazis.
I can not put into proper words how awesome this game is. I played it for 6 hours overnight at GenCon and had to buy it from the production company before coming home so I could introduce it to all my friends.

Say Anything is a party game not unlike Apples to Apples. Each round a different person is the judge and everyone else gets to submit their best answer. In Say Anything the questions are all about opinion and include such gems as “What would Gandhi do if he was invisible for a day?” , and “What is the worst thing to say to a cop?”

Every player receives their own color-coded white board to submit their best guess as to what the judge thinks the answer should be. They also receive color-coded gambling tokens. Unlike Apples to Apples, Say Anything is not just about putting forward your best answer but trying to figure out which answer the judge will pick.

Say Anything is a great getting-to-know-you game to start up gaming parties with new friends. It can be fairly hilarious depending on the sense of humor of all involved, and is a gaming standard at my family gatherings.