Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks? Board Game: Rules for How to Play

Objective

The objective of Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks? is to work together as a team to answer more questions correctly than the box of rocks.

Setup

Remove the question cards from the box and put them in a stack with the question side visible.
Place the gameboard in the middle of the table.
Set the black rock and the human pawn on the start space of the gameboard.
The remaining two rocks stay in the box. Close the lid on the box.
Choose a player to read the questions and answers throughout the game.

How to Play Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks?

Each round begins with the reader drawing one of the cards. They will randomly select one of the questions from the card and read it out loud.

All of the players then discuss what they think the answer is to the question. Every question’s answer is either 0, 1, or 2. The players need to agree on one answer.

Question card — For this round the players are answering the top question. The players have to agree on whether they think zero, one, or two dice contain both the letters “F” and “K” in Boggle. The players decide to go with one.

After the players agree on an answer, the reader shakes the box. They will then open the lid and count up how many white marks they can see on the rocks. The number of visible white marks is the rocks’ answer.

Rocks answer to the question — After shaking up the rocks in the box, one white mark is visible. The rocks’ answer for this question is one.

The reader then flips over the card and announces the answer to all of the players.

Showing the answer side of a question card — The answer to the question is one. Both the players and the rocks guessed correctly.

Scoring

The players and the rocks score points each time they answer a question correctly.

If the players give the correct answer, they will move the player pawn forward one space on the gameboard.

Should the rocks’ give the right answer, they will move the rock pawn forward one space.

If the players and the rocks both got the right answer, both move their corresponding pieces forward one space.

Moving pawns forward after providing the correct answer — Since the players and rocks both provided the correct answer, both markers are moved forward one space.

After the playing pieces are moved, another round it played.

Winning the Game

The first team to make it to the finish space wins the game. If the players reach the finish first, all of the players win. If the rocks make it to the finish first, all of the players lose the game.

Should both pawns reach the finish line at the same time, you will play sudden death rounds until only one team gets the answer correct. The first team to get a question correct that the other team doesn’t get right, wins the game.

Are You Dumber Than a Box of Rocks? FAQ

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

100 cards
3 Fake Rocks (2 have one marks, 1 is blank)
Human Player Pawn
Gameboard
Instruction Card

Year: 2016 | Publisher: Haywire Group, University Games | Designer: Joe Herbert, Dave Herbert

Genres: Party, Trivia

Ages: 12+ | Number of Players: 2+ | Length of Game: 10-20 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.