''Cranium'' is a
party game
Party games are games that are played at social gatherings to facilitate interaction and provide entertainment and recreation. Categories include (explicit) icebreaker, parlour (indoor), picnic (outdoor), and large group games.Frankel, Lillian; ...
created by Whit Alexander and
Richard Tait in 1998. Hasbro purchased Cranium, Inc. Initially manufactured by
Cranium, Inc., which was bought by
Hasbro, Inc. for $77.5 million in 2008, it is billed as "The Game for Your Whole Brain". Unlike many other party games, ''Cranium'' includes a wide variety of activities. Giorgio Davanzo handles packaging and branding for the game, and the artwork is by cartoonist
Gary Baseman.
Board
The board is laid out as a circuit, consisting of four equally split colored spaces. Each color corresponds to a question card category that players must pull from on their turn. The purple "Planet Cranium" space gives the team their choice of category. Red is "Fun Facts", green is "Act & Hum", blue is "Sketch & Sculpt" and yellow is "Word Puzzles".
Expansions and spinoffs
*Booster Boxes: boxes of cards (and clay) sold separately from the game that contain a new deck of each type of card. , Booster Boxes 1 and 2 are available, along with a special New York edition pack.
*''Cadoo'': a children's version of the game that has some elements of
tic-tac-toe
Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...
.
*''Conga'': a version with a slightly older target audience than ''Cadoo''. Incorporates a musical timer of ''Cranium'', designed for two or more players to play cooperatively.
*''Cranium Hullabaloo'': a children's dancing game
*''Cranium Kabookii'': a
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...
version available on the
Wii platform. Activities comprise a mixture of some from the original game and new games better suited for a video game environment.
*''Cranium Scribblish'': played very much like the game of
telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into el ...
. Players start by drawing a caption card from the deck and must draw the caption, then pass to another player who captions what they believe the other person has drawn, then draw said caption. Winners correctly guess which drawing started as their own.
*''Cranium The Family Fun Game'': a game similar to the original ''Cranium'' with some minor changes.
*''Cranium Turbo Edition'': a version of ''Cranium'' designed for a faster game.
*''Cranium Wow'': a similar game to the original with new cards and activities from ''Cranium Turbo''.
*''Cranium Pop 5'': a pop-culture focused version released in 2006 where one team assigns the point value (ranked from 1–5) the other team will earn depending on how the other team guesses the clue (through acting, drawing, humming, sculpting, or using letter cubes).
*''Cranium Brain Breaks:'' 200 one-minute mini games.
*''Cranium
SpongeBob SquarePants
''SpongeBob SquarePants'' (or simply ''SpongeBob'') is an American Animated series, animated Television comedy, comedy Television show, television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It ...
Edition''
*''Cranium Partyland Park: Is a children's game by
Vtech, and
Vsmile
* ''Jam Pack Jam'': a travel-themed twist on Buckaroo
* ''Cariboo'': a children's game
* ''Balloon Lagoon'': a children's game
* ''Bloom Bingo
* ''Cranium Zigity''
References
External links
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{{Hasbro
Board games introduced in 1998
Party board games
Hasbro franchises
Hasbro games
Cross and circle games
Quiz games