Party board game Cranium has been a game night mainstay for decades now, with its enduring popularity leading to the development of various spin-off games. One of the more popular Cranium spin-offs is Cranium Hoopla, which now has a brand-new version available as part of Cranium's 25th anniversary celebration.
Whereas the original Cranium is a combination card game and board game, Cranium Hoopla is strictly a card game. Party game shelves have been overwhelmed with card games since Cards Against Humanity's spike in popularity, but Cranium Hoopla offers a unique card game experience that feels like a fresh of breath air among the countless CAH clones out there.
What makes Cranium Hoopla unique is that, as opposed to many other party games, it's an entirely cooperative experience. It takes themes and gameplay ideas from the core Cranium game but challenges players to complete them all as a team. By removing the board and focusing only on the challenges, it plays like a quicker, more condensed version of Cranium that strips away a lot of the downtime and maximizes the fun.
With 15 minutes on the clock, Cranium Hoopla players have to work together to guess each other's cards. 24 cards are in play, so players in a group of eight would all have three cards. In the event that Cranium Hoopla players don't have a full team of eight to play, the extra cards go into a draw pile and still have to be guessed. If a player can't get their partners to guess whatever's on the card, two new cards are added to the mix, making it less likely that the group will get through all the cards within the 15-minute time limit.
Each card has three possible things that players may need to guess - a person, a thing, and a place. For example, one card may have a picture of a plunger on it, with the person being Mario, the thing being a plunger, and the place being the Mushroom Kingdom. Players roll a multicolored die that has the corresponding symbols for all three categories as well as colors that match one of the four Cranium category cards.
The green card is Soundstage, the red card is Likewise, the yellow card is Countaloupe, and the blue card is Cloodle. Soundstage is basically charades, and Cloodle is basically Pictionary, mirroring how these categories function in the regular Cranium board game. However, Likewise and Countaloupe are different than their corresponding categories in Cranium. For Likewise, players have to get their teammates to guess the answer by using a "Like, But" phrase, whereas Countaloupe has them providing a one-word clue, two-word clue, three-word clue, etc. Until the team gets it right.
Using the Mario example, players could say, "It's like Luigi, but red." It may sound simple on paper, but some of the cards have extremely challenging words to get people to guess, and the stress of the clicking tock adds a great deal of tension to the proceedings. It's surprisingly challenging to complete a game of Cranium Hoopla within the time limit, as players are bound to run into situations where too much time is spent on one card or players give up and have to take an extra card.
Those that do master Cranium Hoopla can up the ante by playing the Advanced mode. This makes things even more difficult by having players do charades with their arms pinned to their sides or by making it so players can never erase the white board whenever they have to draw pictures. It's quite challenging, but beating the clock is genuinely rewarding, and it's nice to have an easy to play co-op party game like this.
Anyone that's a fan of the original Cranium will have a blast with Cranium Hoopla. While some may miss things like the clay sculpting or the other activities in Cranium, Cranium Hoopla provides a faster-paced and more consistently entertaining twist on the classic board game. Those that already own an older version should know that the upgrade is well worth it for the updated pop culture references and over 300 cards that should ensure Cranium Hoopla stays in anyone's game night rotation.
Cranium Hoopla is available now. The Best War Games was provided with a copy of the game for this review.