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Grab a Squirrel and get ready to climb a mountain by answering all the important questions in life. Let’s see what That’s A Question has to offer!
Getting Started
Set up for That’s A Question is simple. You choose a squirrel meeple and take the matching coloured tiles. Each player is dealt 5 answer tiles and everyone but the starting player gets an acorn. Make a draw pile of the other tiles, put the starting board in the centre and the score board to the side. That’s it! You’re ready for your first question!
Mountains Of Questions
The starting player chooses someone to ask a question to and takes their acorn. The acorns are basically just to keep track of who’s been asked, so that everyone gets a turn. They then choose which out of the three questions they would like to ask and pick 2 tiles from their hand to serve as the answers. Everyone else has to guess which the answerer will choose – A or B? They secretly vote using their coloured tiles and when everyone is ready, all is revealed. You score a point if you guess correctly what the answerer will choose, the answerer scores a point regardless and the asker scores a point for everyone who guesses incorrectly.
The 3 questions are always the same but the answers can be mixed and matched to make 100’s of interesting choices.
The first question is ‘Which of these would you choose?’ Some of the combinations we had with this were ‘to be the best tennis player in the world’ or ‘to be the best football player in the world?’ Ah, decisions, decisions! ‘To visit Mars and then come back’ or ‘to be able to observe any historical event?’ – I opted for observing historical events, that would be a fascinating skill.
The second question is ‘Which would you miss more if it ceased to exist?’ Answers included the difficult decision between ‘shoes’ or ‘good mattresses’ – I really like to be comfortable when I sleep! And the almost marriage breaking choice between ‘chocolate’ or ‘board games’ – You think you know a person and then they go and answer chocolate!!
The last question definitely got the least use in all the games we played, even when we introduced new players. ‘Whom do you consider worse? Someone who…’ Examples are ‘doesn’t return things they borrow’ or ‘breaks a promise just because they are lazy’. Also ‘buys things they can’t afford so they will appear wealthy’ or ‘reads their co-workers’ emails without telling them’.
Age Is Just A Number
We played That’s A Question multiple times, some games with all adults and some with a few children in the mix. It’s definitely not one for young children, but playing with a 7 year old and an 11 year old produced some lovely conversations with them. It was great to hear their thought process of why they made that decision. Since playing, my 7 year old sporadically pipes up with a question he’s made up by himself to ask me. I take that to be a sign of a good game for kids, when it makes them think and it inspires them.
The issue is, it is not a game for kids. It’s listed as 15+ which just doesn’t seem to fit at all. The only questions not suitable come from the orange answers the ‘Whom do you consider worse?’. A few mention things like ‘discovers a friend is cheating and tells the friend’s spouse’, many mentions of stealing and cheating and a couple of cigarettes and alcohol. However, there is nothing X rated, it’s not a real adult party game, it really feels like a family game that needs a few answers altering. I’m not sure how much experience even a 15 year old has of work related issues and work issues come up a lot.
Playing That’s A Question with children involved and missing out the orange side altogether is very entertaining. We were all laughing out loud and having a good chat about everyone’s choices and how it’s ok if we would make a different choice.
The squirrel meeples and cover art lends to the assumption that this is a game aimed at children/families. The box does feature a very cute squirrel and seemingly a reference to The Matrix as he’s holding a red and blue marble.
How Do You Solve A Problem Like That’s A Question
I’ve had a think about where and when That’s A Question would fit a group without changing it at all and I would say as an ice breaker at the beginning of a work meeting. As I said none of the questions are X rated so it’s not inappropriate for a work setting, but it’s a fun ‘get to know you game’, makes people laugh and gives you something to talk about with people you don’t know well. ‘You’d miss cheese more than washing machines?!?’. That sounds a very specific time to use this game! I do think it would be great in that setting though.
Playing with a group of adults who know each other was fun. However, there are other party games aimed at adults that our gaming group would pick to play over this. We played Bucket of Doom recently which was entertaining for a quick party game.
Final thoughts
Overall I really like the gameplay but I think double sided cards aimed only at kids would have been fantastic. Looking for an ice breaker game for work or to begin a game night? Then I think this would be perfect. For us, we will continue to play with family and friends (kids included) and just skip over some answers because the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves, as did we!
