Party board game Cranium has been a favorite since the original launched in the 1990s, and like any other successful board game, it's enjoyed a number of different versions over the years. Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition from Funko Games is launching June 1 to celebrate 25 years of the popular board game, bringing a freshly updated take to the masses.
Anyone that's familiar with Cranium will know exactly what to expect from Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition. The premise is that two teams are competing to get around a circular board as fast as possible by completing tasks or correctly answering trivia questions. One round may play more like a game of Trivial Pursuit, while the next may involve sculpting a figure out of clay. The game also comes with two whiteboards and dry-erase markers, so there's a bit of Pictionary thrown into the mix as well, not to mention charades. Cranium is essentially multiple popular party games rolled into one.
Variety has always been one of Cranium's strong suits, and that's no different with Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition. But between the clay, the trivia cards, and the white boards, some may be concerned that playing Cranium can be messy or disorganized, but the board doubles as convenient storage for all the pieces and parts. Everything fits nicely inside the Cranium board, making it easy to set up and play or put everything away when a game has been completed.
As players move around their board, they will be met with four different color-coded challenge categories. There are Fact & Picture Challenges, which include trivia, ordering things correctly, deciding which items in a list don't belong, answering multiple-choice questions, and identifying objects. Then there are Word & Letter Puzzles, which include filling in the blank, figuring out the missing rhyming world, choosing the word that most closely matches a definition, and rearranging letters to solve a puzzle. The Drawing & Sculpting category has players drawing on the white boards under various conditions and sculpting objects out of clay, while Acting & Sound Effects features various takes on charades. So not only do the categories themselves provide variety, but the different tasks within those categories are also plenty varied.
For example, Drawing & Sculpting has the basic Pictionary task of drawing on a white board and having teammates correctly guess whatever's being drawn, but it also has twists on the concept where one player holds the marker and another moves the whiteboard around to create the picture, and there's another variant where the drawer has to draw the picture with their eyes closed. It's unlikely that one will experience all the different types of challenges in Cranium in an initial 45-minute playthrough, so the game definitely has a lot of replay value and should be an easy pick for board game nights.
The sheer amount of variety is one of Cranium's greatest strengths, but it can sometimes have a negative impact on the flow and pacing of the game. Veteran Cranium players who have the rules memorized will be able to breeze through, but newer players will have to keep referring to the instruction manuals to know what to do. The game conveniently comes with two instruction manuals, so both teams can at least have their own to refer to, but it is still something to consider.
Cranium is otherwise simple to play and easy to understand. Players roll a die to determine what kind of challenge they'll have to complete, and if they are successful, they can move their piece to the next available tile with that color. There's an hourglass to time players for each turn, and there are also tokens that players can use to get an advantage. Each team has four tokens - two re-rolls, one +1 move, and one +2 move. The tokens are deposited into a coin slot on the Cranium board when used and add a layer of strategy to the proceedings, though they can potentially make games end a little too quickly.
It's a testament to how fun Cranium is that players won't want it to end too fast. Set-up is easy, there's plenty of variety in the challenge types, and it's something that can be genuinely fun for both kids and adults, making it one of the more versatile party board games on the market. This 25th anniversary edition is worth it for those who haven't upgraded their version of Cranium for a while or brand-new fans who have never played it before.
Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is available now. The Best War Games was provided with a copy of the board game for review.