Static Zombie

Tie One On

Remember last August, when I said I had some great news but couldn't talk about it? Well, now I can talk about it.

SarrettAdams will have a game in Hasbro's 2006-2007 line.

We're super-excited, of course. The game is going to be exclusively available at Wal-Mart for the first year, and if successful it'll go into wide release after that. Hasbro tried this last year with a game called Boxers or Briefs. Their success with that title led them to change the name of our game from Train of Thought (complete with locomotive pieces, railroad scoring track, etc) to Tie One On, on the theory that a more risque title might sell better than a train theme. Ironically, when they originally bought the game one of the things we were told Hasbro really liked about it was the name and theming. Go figure!

If you like $20,000 Pyramid, you'll like Tie One On. It's a game with changing partnerships, meaning that each time it's your turn you're paired up with a different player, one to give clues and the other to guess. Partners have a limited amount of time to get up to 7 terms from a game card. All the terms on the card are related in one of four ways: sharing a word in common (BOX OFFICE, THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX), rhyming, linked phonemes (CENTER, TERMITE, MIGHTY MOUSE), and word association (SHEET, MUSIC, JAZZ). That's it. Simple, straighforward, and fun to play.

Hasbro changed the scoring rules in the published version, which is probably best for the mass market. Advanced players may find that they're getting perfect scores a lot and might prefer the original rules: if you get all seven items on the card, stop the timer immediately and score one bonus point for every 4 seconds remaining on the clock, rounding up (so 5 seconds = 2 points). This means you'll want to use an electronic timer instead of the included sand timer. You might also want to play through the entire turn tracker list instead of playing to a fixed score, to eliminate any kind of sabotage or kingmaking.

Tie One On just shipped, so I imagine it will be available sometime this month (but only at Wal-Mart). I don't know what it will be selling for, but I urge you to run out and buy five-- they'll make great gifts.