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Games Magazine Best Party Game of the year 2007/2008

GiftTRAP wins GAMES Magazine’s “Best Party Game of the year 2007/2008”

What's the idea?

Click here to find out how we’ve turned gift giving into a hilarious social experience

Discover the fun!

Click to unwrap the fun.

Puts your gifts to the test!

GiftTRAP is the hilarious new game that’s taking the gaming world by storm and putting the social back into board games.

The goal is to really get to know your friends and family.

You win by knowing your friends and choosing the right gifts, but most of all it’s just fun to play and gets you talking about things that matter.

• 3-8 Players, 5+
• Playtime 45-75 mins
• Learn in 10 mins

• 1 full size game board
• 640 Gift Ideas
• Rules
• 8 Organza Gift Bags containing; scoring markers, gift & choice tokens plus advanced strategy cards

Love to play Trivial Pursuit, Cranium or Apples to Apples - You will love this family party game.

GiftTRAP is all the fun of Secret Santa without needing to shop or wrap.

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What kind of Gift Giver are you?

Conspiracy Theory - Scrabulous: PR scam funded by street savvy Hasbro

I must confess to feeling sorry for Hasbro on occasions for their stupidity. Now if someone told me Scrabulous (Wordscraper) was a “plant” funded for Hasbro I’d be impressed - all generated by an idea from some off the wall “social media” agency - then I’d laugh out loud..

Not only have they benefited from increased sales of Scrabble - it’s practically been relaunched, they also sell a million plus copies per year so their brand isn’t doing too bad and instead of applauding the innovation they stamp all over it.

I’m commenting as an indie board game publisher of the award winning party game GiftTRAP, which is built on the back of Creative Commons licenses, so I’m a huge supporter of this “mix it up” school. The CC guys have have really supportive of our game and we couldn’t have made our game a success without it. Yet success is all about attention and you’d think Hasbro would get that.

To me it’s a crime to “kill” the attention Scrabulous has given them. Was Hasbro really thinking people wanted to switch to a legal version of their game. I laughed when I read a defensive quote from Hasbro saying they “will continue to innovate on Scrabble” - (oh I forgot about the Onyx version)

I’ve published a Facebook app of my game and so I know how hard it is. Launching a virtual gift-exchange game a year after Free Gifts and Facebook Gifts have delivered 150 million virtual gifts is huge. Social media sites like Flickr, LinkedIn, Boardgamegeek and Facebook have been our saviour in getting our game to market. To get attention it’s all about timing and story.

People don’t just use the apps because they are there. The edgyness and illegality of the Scrabulous game was half the attraction. Facebook has dampened the impact of apps and users have lost their curiosity. I’m not surprised with 30k apps on offer.

I’d trade in our “Best Party Game” award for a share of their attention but it doesnt happen that way.

What I dislike most about the big game companies is they don’t really have to try. It’s not about the games anymore (we don’t need more new copies of the same old stuff), it’s about the control of the channels to market. Consumers just keep buying monopoly spinoffs, Onyx scrabble sets and the list goes on. How many times can people buy the same games. http://boardgamegeek.com is a great place to look for truly great games and read what real people think.

Just please don’t buy any licensed/branded games - “Some sad Shrek Game” or “Desperate Housewives Trivia.”.  Just like buying a good book make sure if you buy a game that is has awards and great reviews form trusted sources. These “cookie cutter” games have no innovation and you’ll pretty much play them once and forget them if you are lucky.

The problem or the miracle of something like Scrabble/Monopoly etc is that it’s become a self repeating part of culture. It’s almost genetic.

So go on break the mold and go buy an indie game. Even better buy one in the summer and really buck the trend!

I think I really needed to read this post. Why is it I feel the need to buy all the branded games? I think GiftTRAP looks pretty cool. Mayne that should be my first indie game?

By missgullible on 2008 08 13