I must say that this is one of my all time favorite party games, ever!  Balderdash is the “classic bluffing game” and who doesn’t love to bluff on occasion?!  I remember playing this game with my siblings and my oldest brother’s answers would always make me crack up so hard – he was good, real good!  My family and friends could always tell when they came across my answer, because all of a sudden I would have the giggles. 

Balderdash is for ages 12 and older and with 2 or more players.  The game includes a board game, 6 movers, 336 game cards, 1 answer sheet pad, 1 dice (die for all of you nerds), and an instruction sheet (but who needs that).  There are five different categories: Weird Words, Peculiar People, Incredible Initials, Marvelous Movies, and Laughable Laws.  The point of the game is to make up answers to the above 5 categories and hope for people to pick your definition over anyone else’s or the real definition. 

You start off by everyone rolling the dice; the person with the highest number will be the first “dasher”.  The “dasher” rolls the dice to see which category number will be played.  If the dasher roles a “6” they can chose any category they prefer.  Once the dasher has a category, they read it off, whether it is 1- word, 2- person, 3- initials, 4- Film Title, and 5- Weird laws.  Each player has to come up with their own answer or definition for that word, person, initial, film, or law while the dasher writes down the correct answer.  Once everyone has completed their answers, the dasher collects them all and randomly reads each one out loud while giving each one a number.  All the players each get one guess on which definition/answer they think is the real one.  Once all the guesses have been given, each player who’s definition was chosen gets to move forward one space per guess, and the dasher gets to move one space per guess as well on the real answer/definition.  If the real answer was never chosen, the dasher gets to move forward 3 spaces.  If a person guesses the correct answer, they get to move forward 2 spaces on top of any other spaces/points they acquired from other people’s guesses.  If a player wrote down a definition similar to the real answer, that card gets set aside and the player automatically gets 3 points.  The dasher then moves clockwise on to the next person.  The winner is the person who passes the finish line first. 

This game as you can probably tell can get pretty hilarious.  An example for initials – M.E.G.  My guess would be – Mad Eating Gorillas.  The correct answer is: Madly Enthusiastic about Grapes, now who would have really guessed that answer?  Another category, Person – Barbara Zulu.  My guess would be -she founded internet TV in 2006.  The real answer is: South African woman who gave birth to six sets of twins.  The great part about this game is that you can say practically anything and someone might believe that is the real answer.

If you are looking for a fun game to play with a bunch of smart, witty, funny people, this is the ultimate, fall out of your chair party game.  Get it, you won’t regret it!