Huggermuggered
(Please note: for the length of this review, the word “huggermuggered” will mean duped, ambushed, suckered, or just outright screwed in to something. For example “I got huggermuggered into playing ‘Huggermugger’ with my wife”. Recent dictionary searches?have pointed out that I may have been using this word incorrectly for many years. If so, I blame my public school education.)
For the moment, my “project log”?has?turned into?anything but. However,?I’m hosting a big Bunker Party on Friday, so I’m going to have to make some progress on something.?
Until then, here’s?the beef?on Huggermugger (yick! 5.1 on Boardgamegeek). ??
First things first, I found this thing in a thrift store over lunch a week ago. DangerKitty said that he’d played it with his aunt, so I thought, what the hell…?perhaps I can come down to some truism about his psyche. And, it was 2 bucks, and?looked like it had been played a whole?0 times. I also have to mention that I scored Settlers of Catan, the card game for 80 cents at the same time. Boyakasha!
Second things second, I got Die Macher, Caylus Magna Carta, and Age of Empires III (Yay Tanga!) in the mail today, and Mrs. G still made me play this thing. Pottse didn’t want to either.
Third things… umm… third.?There’s this?odd board with six starting points and?a bunch of squares arranged 14×3, and “The Mystery Wheel”. More on that in a minute.
Each player’s turn consists of spinning the spinner, and moving that number of spaces. Certain spaces have pointing fingers which mandate that your move to the next space must be in that direction. Once you have stopped, the next player gives you the challenge printed on the card corresponding to the symbol you landed on, unless of course, you land on the Cuh-razy “Frog on a Bicycle” square which allows you to spin again! Cuh-razy!
Here is an example of a Huggermugger card:
The “Alphabet Soup” symbol above means that the player is given the jumbled letters, and must find the hidden word. The?skeleton key?is a multiple choice question where the player must choose the correct definition for the given word. The bumblebee is a basic spelling bee, and the horseshoes is a “try your luck” sort of card. Most often the Horseshoe questions were like “List 10 words that start with the letters SUB” or “List 12 words that rhyme with ‘chopper'”.
If you?fail the challenge, play moves on to the next player. If you succeed… you get some prime alone time with “The Mystery Wheel”!
The wheel contains 90 different words. Selected by aligning the notch on the right.
?Here we are at word #2:
Each time you complete a challenge, you are allowed to see the letter corresponding to your spin. In other words, if you spin a 5, you move 5 spaces, do the challenge, and if successful, see the 5th letter of the mystery word.
Here’s a complete mystery word… “OPAL”.?I won’t let you know which number it is, so as not to spoil the game:
?From here, it’s just a race to see who can guess the word first. The only strategy is to find a frog at the end of any duplicate spin, so you can spin again. There is absolutely no benefit to finding a letter twice.
?All in all, the challenges were fun, but the board was just plain weird, and the rules were too ambiguous. It was rare to not find a frog which allowed us to replay any spin. Many turns went like this:?spin a 5… doh! got that already… find a frog… spin again… 5… find a frog… spin again… etc.
?So would I play this again? Not by choice, but Mrs. G absolutely loved it. In fact, it made her so ecstatic that I will probably play a few more times just to make her happy. (Best… husband… evar.)
?Pray for me.
