Foolin' around - adult game discontinued by Double G Communications - review by Kayla

Foolin' Around is an adult game - but not really. It's basically a group game with a bit of a risque theme to it, but I wouldn't call it an adult game. The game requires at least four players, and you can have as many players as you like since the game just requires dividing into two teams. The game includes 108 different game cards, the true/false finger, a 1-minute timer, PVC bondage tape, a score pad with about 50 pages, a two page instruction book, two pencils, and ten different balloons.

All of these items are contained in a sturdy cardboard box. It's actually really sturdy - one of the strongest cardboard boxes for a board game I've seen. It actually will happily be stored underneath college textbooks - this box will be lasting a long time. While the game is called "Foolin' Around" the box is pretty board-game lookin', so there's no reason to need to hide this. The box has a storage tray and works just fine for storage of the game.

The rules for this game are pretty basic. The players split into two teams then take turns choosing a catagory of card to play. Both teams then choose a card from the pile and one team goes first to act out their card. If they do it successfully, they get points. The game keeps going until the point where you have predetermined to stop whether that's at a certain time limit or a certain point limit. We always chose 30 minutes to be our stopping point. If you have an odd number of players, you can specify one person to specifically take care of scoring/drawing cards/etc which will make the teams even as well.

The cards are interesting. They are split into 108 cards which are split into six categories: Messin', Balloonin', Mimin', Guessin', Blindfoldin', and Darin'. They're really just exactly as the names sound. The cards each use little symbols to explain what objects you'll need, and the instructions explain the symbols (they're self explanatory too.) From what I remember, we never used any objects that weren't included in the box. All of the cards basically tell you actions to act out wth your group. The downside about these cards is that most of the cards in each category are basically the same thing with different items involved - for example, when it asks you to mime things, it'll just ask you to mime something else. On the upside, there are quite a few cards here, and even with multiple playings, I doubt you'll get through them all.

The pad of paper is just divided into two sections: Team one and Team two. There's enough pads of paper here for everytime you'll choose to play this game - there have to be at least fifty pages here. There are two mini pencils included as well for the teams to write with. There's also a little plastic orange/blue hourglass timer which can be flipped upside down to time out a full minute. Most of the challenges call for one/two minutes of play, so it can be flipped over again for the two minute count. There are ten different balloons included in the kit, and while those may not be around if you play the game a lot, you can easily replace them with cheap balloons at the local party store. There is also a true/false sign included which works with some of the challenges.

Blue PVC bondage tape is also included. There isn't as much bondage tape as if you had purchase it separately, but since bondage tape usually goes for about $12 by itself, you're getting a pretty good deal with it being included in this kit. The bondage tape is a pretty sky blue. It's PVC which means that it only sticks to itself. It doesn't pull out hair at all, and with about three layers of a wrap around the wrists, it will hold firm even with a person pulling on it. I actually like bondage tape as a form of bondage, and since the tape is reusable, you don't have to worry about purchasing more.

Some card examples (all paraphrased): Two players sit in a blindfolded player's lap and say "Hello baby". The sitting player has to guess who is who. | A center player studies the clothing his fellow teammates are wearing. Center player is blindfolded and people exchange 5 items of clothing. Center player has to guess what changed. | First team to find five specific items around the house wins points. | A player has to mime movie titles to his fellow teammates who have to guess it. | Telephone Miming: The first player is told a phrase which he has to mime to the player next to him. The "mime" is done down a line through all of the fellow teammates, and if the last person has it right, they win the points. | Two players (while clothed) assume a sexual position shown on a card. The teammates must guess the position. | Guess the top three answers to a sexual question.

The game isn't intended to be an "adult" game with people getting naked. It could be imposed that way, but it's not the way it was made. (You could set a time limit at every five minutes and whoever had the least points at five minutes had to take off a piece of clothing, and you could continue that until someone was naked.) This game is really just intended for a group of friends who happen to be adults. Most of the cards are basically PG-13 with the exception of a couple and of the "Darin'" category. It's not meant to be a good prologue to swinger's parties or anything like that; it's just meant to be a game to be played between adults who don't want to play something more childish like Candyland. (Extreme example maybe.) This wasn't intended as a game to get people horny, so don't view it that way or you'll be disappointed. I will say that the game does require a lot of touching between players.

I'd recommend this game to people who are looking for a game to play with their other adult friends - but not really in a sexy/intimate setting. Nobody gets naked or anything like that. The game is just intended to be a party game for adults, and on that plane, it succeeds.