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Stay Cool is a game that teases you from the off. 'Stay Cool is easy' claims the game description, and there's the ironic almost goading title itself. Opening the box doesn't give off much of a clue to the evil that lurks within. There is no ominous music that starts up. A chill won't tingle up your spine. The colourful dice and cards don't grow teeth and attempt to eat you. Far from it.
Of course reading the rules starts to crack the innocent facade Stay Cool attempts to maintain. Revealing that although the tasks you are receiving may not me too difficult, you will be tasked with multiple things to do at once.
Stay Cool While Multi Tasking...
The game plays over three rounds where the difficult of your tasks and the pressure on you slowly increases. During the first round one player will be the active player. Other players will split tasks between at least two of them, with the timer being given to a fourth player or the player asking the verbal tasks. Tasks are split into three categories, in the first round you have written and verbal and round two and three add in timer jobs to worry about.
For the written tasks you will be given a series of questions you answer by manipulating the seven letter dice. The colourful dice have consonants on their faces and the two white dice have vowels and 'y's. Usually you will be spelling words to answer the questions, but sometimes you must use the dice in other ways. As soon as your first written question has been asked the timer is flipped and your first verbal task is read. Again these are usually questions, some trivia and some mildly personal (what was your worst subject at school?). As soon as you have answered one question the relevant player reads out the next question on their card until the timer runs out or you answer all the questions on both cards.
The cards give an increasing point value depending on how far you get through them with the maximum on both being 5. Your two numbers are multiplied together for a maximum round score of 25.
Timer Woes
Once you enter the second round the active player now has to be aware of the timer. You have two minutes total to answer your questions but this is measured with a 30 second timer which must be flipped a further three times after you have started. Round one this is taken care of by another player. Round two you must watch the timer and tell that player to flip it. On the third round the timer is hidden behind a box and if it runs out before you tell the player to flip it, then your turn ends.
This small detail turns an already pressured situation up a few notches. Even in the early rounds you will struggle to remember a question that has just been asked to you and ask for it to be repeated multiple times. Included in the rules and on a card are some important rules for the question askers. These include allowing them discretion over 'correct' answers. For example I was asked a question about what certain flowers have in common and I said petals - this wasn't written on the card but as it was true the question asker accepted it. Trust me - the game goes much smoother if you do this too!
Fit for Purpose
Stay Cool's components are pretty good. The dice are colourful and chunky and feel great to roll, not that you will do this often. The cards are good stock and double sided but again won't need shuffling much. Make sure you leave the box lid and base near by as a few tasks use those elements too!
Game play was a lot of fun for me and my family. At times frustrating, but more because of our own inadequacies! And this can be a problem for some groups. Some people will be naturally better at this sort of game than others. For me it is one of those games that I treat more like 'golf' where I compete against my own previous scores rather than the people with me. This means I can root for other players and gentle help them rather than try to beat them. Because a fairly rigid scoring system is in place this may be harder to ignore for some competitive players. I would suggest most people treat it like a party game in this aspect.
The thing it reminds me of most are those old 'brain training' games that were popular for a while. Stay Cool certainly taxes your noodle in a good way!
Under Pressure
There isn't a high trivia level here, but some questions and their answers are more americanised, although in our plays we only found a couple. More of an issue are the randomly more difficult trivia questions that can appear at random and at any point on the card. Each player can pass once, but this shifts the timer to the next point on the card without flipping it essentially losing you a whole 30 seconds. Get two of these questions and your luck is out.
Of course this can be down to a players own personal knowledge but Stay Cool isn't a game about knowledge, it's about multitasking and excelling at concentrating on and managing multiple plates at once. Thankfully this again was a rare, but worth mentioning draw back.
It's also worth mentioning that my 10 year old wanted nothing to do with this game. He doesn't like the pressure of the timer and would not have enjoyed it at all.
Warming Up
Overall I rate Stay Cool quite highly. It's a unique party game with high quality components that, for the right players, will be full of laughter and fun. Like every party game it won't be for everyone. With the right group however it absolutely shines and provides a meaningful challenge that makes you feel genuinely proud when you better your last performance!
