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Whozat Board Game Rules

Whozat Board Game Rules
How to Play | My Thoughts | Final Verdict | Comments

How to Play

To begin the game every player needs a piece of paper and a writing utensil. Each player then places their player pawn on the starting space.

Players alternate who is in charge of being the “host” who is responsible for showing the card to the other players. The host slides the cardholder onto the card so the players can only see the #1 picture. The host then turns over the 30-second sand timer. The other players look at the picture during that time and decide if they would like to make a guess of which celebrity is pictured. If a player makes a guess they are unable to make any other guesses or change their guess during the current round. The host then shows the players the second picture and flips over the timer. Players can once again guess. The host finally shows the third picture and flips over the sand timer.

After the third clue, the host reveals the celebrity. Players that correctly guessed the celebrity get points based on the round that they made their guess. If they guessed during the first round they get three points/spaces. During the second round they get two points/spaces. Finally during the third round the player gets one point/space. If a player guesses incorrectly they move back the same number of spaces as indicated above.

If a person gets three celebrities correct in a row based on the first clue they get to play a round all by themselves where no other players are allowed to guess.

Whoever reaches the finish first wins the game. If two or more players reach the finish line on the same question, they play a sudden death round where whichever player scores the most points wins.

My Thoughts

Whozat is a pretty small unknown game made by the Canadian company Irwin Toy Limited. Whozat is a simple celebrity trivia game that provides a twist. Instead of trying to identify the celebrity based on facts, in Whozat players look at caricature pictures of celebrities and try to guess which celebrity is pictured based on some of the celebrities most notable features. Not being a huge fan of celebrities, I didn’t have much for expectations for Whozat. Whozat is not a terrible game but it just wasn’t for me.

The biggest problem I had with the game is that it is harder than you would expect. I am by no means an expert of celebrities though so that may have something to do with the struggles my group and I had with the game. With everyone struggling to get correct answers the game ended up dragging on. This problem will not be an issue for everyone though. If you are good at recognizing celebrities you will probably be pretty good at the game and the difficulty shouldn’t be an issue for you.

Whozat was made back in 1992 and based on some of the celebrities included, it shows. I was quite young when this game was made but there are some celebrities in the game that I didn’t even know after looking at their names. I would question how famous some of the celebrities were back in 1992. Most of the celebrities are still known names but younger audiences may wonder who quite a few of the people are. There were quite a few people I didn’t know.

What adds to the difficulty is that some of the clues aren’t particularly helpful. For example in the game that I played two of the cards were for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Harrison Ford. Both celebrities are well known and you would think they would be pretty easy to guess. The clues that were given though were so obscure that no one was able to figure out who they were.

The clues on the cards could have been structured better in my opinion. The first clue should have been somewhat obscure but helpful enough that people could still get a correct guess. The second clue should have been a little more helpful. The final clue should have been something pretty obvious that anyone who actually knows the celebrity should have been able to guess correctly. The clues on the cards are pretty hit or miss. Sometimes none of the clues are helpful. Sometimes the first clue is the most obvious clue. These wild differences in clue quality make some cards pretty easy while other cards are really difficult.

With the game being pretty hard to start with, the rule that you lose points/spaces if you get a question wrong seems kind of unfair. My group threw this rule out right away. If we kept the rule in place I honestly think we would have never finished the game. Unless you are great at identifying celebrities, you will have a hard time making any progress in this game if you use this rule.

The card holder that is included with the game is disappointing. The card holder actually works pretty well and is a good idea to help the judge only reveal one clue at a time. Unfortunately the card holder is too small. It is quite hard to get the card into the card holder since both are pretty much the same size. It honestly was such a hassle to get the cards in the card holder that my group eventually decided to just ditch the card holder and use something else in order to cover up the other pictures. If the game would have made the card holder a little larger it would have been easy to slip the card in and the card holder would have been helpful.

Overall the cards are pretty good. They are your typical card stock which is nice. The artwork on the cards is pretty good. The cards feature original caricature artwork done by Marshall Jay Kaplan. These are all well drawn. If you like caricature artwork you should like the artwork in this game. The only problem with the artwork is that as I mentioned before some of the clues given are not very good.

Final Verdict

Whozat is a basic celebrity trivia game. I am not a fan of celebrities so this game really wasn’t made for me. I found the game to be pretty boring and more difficult than it should have been. If you are like me and are not a huge fan of celebrities, Whozat will not be for you.

People who are more into the celebrity culture though will probably get quite a bit more out of the game than I did. Just remember that the game was made in 1992 so some of the celebrities may be a little outdated. If the concept of the game sounds interesting to you, you will probably like the game.