Publisher: Mindlogic, Inc
Designer: Marshall Chrein
Year: 2009
Genre: Movie themed party game
Players: Three to eight players
Ages: 17+
Playing Time: 30 Minutes
MSRP: $25.00
Consensus Movie Edition is a party game for those who love movies. The nice thing about it is that you don’t need to have seen all of the movies to play the game as it is not a trivia game. A basic familiarity with many movies is all of the preparation that you need. As with most party games, you get a slew of cards. There are 200 different movies represented by the cards ranging from Casablanca to Wedding Crashers. The newest movie in my edition is Sex and the City from 2008, and I’m not sure if it has been updated since then.
Each of the movie cards lists the name, the year it came out, and the stars of the movie. Also included is a stack of 75 question cards. A question could be “Which of the movies is best described as timeless?” or “In which of the movies does sex play the most prominent role?”
The board is long and narrow and has spots for ten movie cards. You deal out ten movie cards to fill the spots, and place the remaining cards in a stack near the board. Place the question cards in a stack on the board. Each player selects a pawn and receives a set of voting cards, which are simply cards numbered 1-10 matching the color of their pawn.
All players place their pawns on the starting space on the score track on the board. There are only 11 spaces, so the games are fairly short.
A question is selected and each player secretly selects a voting card with a number matching the movie they think best fits the question on the board. Each movie space on the board has a number, so you always know which movie goes with which number.
After everyone has voted, the cards are flipped over and matched to the movies. If there is a consensus with a clear majority, then those players advance their token. However, if all players select the same movie, then no one advances. There are clear examples in the instructions, but in a nutshell the movie that has at least one more vote than all of the other movies, but not all the votes, allows those players voting for it to advance.
In this way, knowing more about the other players and what they might select is more valuable than actually being familiar with all of the movies on the board. All of the movies voted on are removed and replaced with fresh movies, and another player selects and reads the next question. The first player to reach the finish space wins the game.
We have had a lot of fun playing Consensus. It is more popular with the adult crowd, those that have had the opportunity to watch many movies over the years. The kids and teens really didn’t get into it because of this reason, but the adults loved seeing the movie names that would pop up. Once you’ve worked your way through the movie cards and they start repeating, it’s time to pull out another party game and put this one away until the next party. It’s a game that will lose its appeal the more you play, and will become dated as time passes, but for the price point it has and the amount of fun we have received from it the game is well worth it.
If you enjoy party games like Crappy Birthday or Wits and Wagers then you should really enjoy playing Consensus Movie Edition. There is also regular Consensus and Consensus Music Edition as well.
One final note, Mindlogic included a sheet listing every movie that appears in the game. They call it the Movies to Rent or Buy checklist, and it was a nice touch.
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