Pointless is the hugely popular BBC show which sees four couples pit themselves against each other to score as low as they possibly can when answering questions. The lowest score wins. The aim is obviously to be as pointless as possible. Think Family Fortunes, but in reverse.
The Pointless board game by University Games mirrors the programme and is for two-four players or teams, ages ten years+. Now people who read my reviews normally know that I look at the age guide and say, "Meh." and ignore it. However, with this game I actually think it's pretty accurate as it requires a fair amount of general knowledge which most children under the age of ten years do not have. Of course there are exceptions to every rule and if your child likes to stay abreast of trivia and the news then they'd probably be able to play this. (I'm specifically thinking of Kate's son from The Five F's.)
Contents:
- 4 pencils
- answer sheets pad
- 338 questions
- 9 head-head tokens
- 27 trophy tokens
- 3 question card holders
- 1 scoreboard playing board
- 8 playing pieces (2 each of 4 different colours)
- rules of play & quick-start instructions
Before playing this, I would recommend finding an episode of the game to watch as it really helps to understand the format. It takes a little working out and I'm a visual learner so needed to see it in action.
As stated the aim of the game is to be as pointless as possible. I'll use the example question that I saw earlier on the television show: "Name a Richard Gere movie." Obvious answers are 'Pretty Woman' and 'An Officer and a Gentleman' but they were quite high scoring answers so the contestants needed to try and come up with the more obscure answers. There are four rounds played throughout: round one, round two, head-to-head and end game. On each round a question is asked from the relevant pile of question cards which also contain all the possible answers and their scores (based on the 100 people surveyed).
I won't go into the ins and outs of each round, but they are cleverly different and challenging each time. A card is chosen from the pile and placed into the relevant special wallet designed to hide the answers. Players write their answers down on the answer sheet, then reveal them as per the instructions. The answers are revealed and scores calculated. The lowest scoring person receives a 'pointless' token. These are important because in the final round the person with the fewest tokens is eliminated. This seems to be irrelevant when only playing with two players.
Mr. TheBoyandMe and I have spent an enjoyable hour playing this, it was challenging and fun. It was also obvious that while it's possible to play it with only two players, it's not quite as much fun as it would be with teams or three or four players. We enjoyed the range of questions (we need to brush up on world geography) and trying to be as devious as possible. We quickly abandoned using the board to chart our scores as it did actually seem pretty pointless itself (pardon the pun) when you're making a note of the scores on your answer sheet.
This is a fun game to be played across generations, I can't wait to take it down to play with my in-laws when we go and see them in September, my mother-in-law will love it. I would back up the age guide on the game, it's a complicated way of playing it and the questions are quite tricky at times.
A thumbs up from this family, a good game for Christmas! However you don't need to bother using the board and this actually makes it a good travel game for holidays.
Pointless is available to buy through Amazon here.
I was sent this game for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.
My oldest loves watching Pointless, but think he'd be a bit young to play this at 5? xx
My little man loves this also, will be 8 by Christmas and think we could have some fun with it, thank you xxx
Might be being really stupid here but what is the symbol that looks like a thick zero in the points section on the answer cards?
It's a thick zero. Seriously 😉
It's a terrible game! Don't buy it! We played as a family this Christmas and it caused alsorts of arguments and unrest! Hahaha.
The biggest problem was we were coming up with some really great answers but they didn't appear on the cards! Excuse the pun, but that is completely pointless!
The cards listed a selection of answers, some of which had scores, some where pointless and some incorrect. Why waste card space having incorrect answers and omitting some of the correct answers?? Just have players assume it's incorrect if not on the card and get all the possible answers listed… Pointless!
In a lot of cases you can't even play it safe by picking a more obvious answer. Often the answers aren't there, and so are deamed incorrect and gain a maximum score. Pointless!
Some examples: Bohemian Rhapsody was never a top 40 hit for Queen; Sylvester Stalone was in Rocky 4 and 5, but not Rocky 1-3 or Expendables 1 or 2; Folkstone does not have a ferry running to either France, Belgium or Holland. All according to this game. Stupid and… POINTLESS.
That's a shame that you found it so annoying. I agree that it is very annoying that some possible answers were omitted from the selection. Thanks for commenting and I'm sure that others will find this information helpful. Maybe Scrabble would be a safer option? 😉
It sounds like you re describing the second round. There are only a selection of answers given here as you are to choose from the list rather than come up with some yourself hence there being some red herrings that are incorrect in there!
We love this game however we have found one card that is wrong, it asks for actors and actresses who have won an acting oscar between 2000 and 2011 yet the card only lists 10 names, surely with 11 years and 4 acting categories there should be around 44! Shame as it's such a good question!
Totally agree with the comment above. The game has clearly been made in around 10 minutes in the rush up to Christmas. Why state wrong answers on the answer card.
Another example is when asked to simply name any elements of the periodic table. It only list around 10-15 on the answer sheet. Do not buy it this game, absolute joke
As this review was posted in August (and I'd had the item since July) then I don't think it's fair to say that it's been made in ten minutes in the rush up to Christmas.
I agree that sometimes not all the answers are listed and that is frustrating, but it's not the case for the vast majority of the cards, and I also state that the answers provided are based on the 100 people surveyed. It's like Family Fortunes in that there are other answers available but they are only basing it against the answers provided by the people surveyed.
Thanks for your comment.
Ah I did not know that. Well surely they should give all the possible answers to the question, not just a select few that score points, some pointless ones and some that are wrong. Complete waste of time.
Love watching pointless and was wondering how it could work as a board game. Have just been given it as a present and think it has been very cleverly designed and cant wait to get my friends together to play it. However the packs of question cards look small in comparison to other games e.g. Trivial pursuit ouburst or pictionary and I hope that there is a plan in the pipeline to produce refill sets of questions in order to prolong the life of the game.