Punderdome: The Game That is a "Pun of Fun"

I love puns, I love words, so it only makes sense that puns would be a joy for me.  This being said, the idea of a game built on and based on puns was a certain choice for me on the Blogging for Books website.  I laid awake, well not really, but I did check the post everyday waiting for my new box of fun to arrive.  It did and I happily opened it.  First impression, the box is attractive, the instructions were easy to understand and made learning the game easy. The object of the game is to create real groaners, awful puns.  Joy for me!

I must say one of my favorite parts of the game is the cards themselves.  There are two hundred cards and every single one has a pun on it, a pure punner's heaven!

Just a couple puns that I enjoyed right off were:

What is the most psychic type of plant?
 The Palm Tree (Ba dum dum!)
or
What did they call the bug that didn't talk about his accomplishments?
A "Humble Bee." (GROAN!)

There are also two mystery envelopes that encourage the game players to include prizes for winning the game.

That being said, actually playing the game became a bit of a problem.

There are two colors of cards, white and green.  The game players are told to take turns being the reader and read the two categories on the cards then the other players  make a pun.  The reader is then to judge the puns and choose their favorite.  The favorite one awards the pun writer with the set of cards.  The first player to acquire ten pairs wins the game.

I tried to play this game with two dynamics of players.  One set were not necessarily word aficionados.  Very literate professionals, but not  people who make puns at every opportunity.  Needless to say this group struggled with the game.  In fact, it was a total bust.

Next, I played the game with true game players and word smiths.  Those who carefully play games and strategize for optimum results.  Also word lovers that do make puns quite often.  Sadly, I did not have a much better result in the playability of this game.

This said, I feel this game has potential.  It just needs "more".  I am not certain what kind of "more" it needs, but perhaps  more details to the prompts for making puns, or maybe more parameters in the instructions.

I love the concept of the game, I love puns in general and the fact that there are 200 puns written on the cards, however, I did not love the game.  Yet, I hope the creators look into adding more to the game because I would certainly enjoy playing it with a bit more depth.

FTC disclaimer: I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review