Do Tell
The new party game DoTell sets up simple rules for a social game of truth-or-dare. Players race a simple spiral path, moving ahead for completed tasks, but I use “race” loosely, since the focus is on the journey, not the destination. (Quick sidenote: Play makes use of clear icons that didn’t rely on distinguishing between colors or, my personal game hate, squinting at tiny symbols. I’m looking at you, Magic:The Gathering.)
We quickly came up with game mods, swapping the game’s two six-sided dice for two four-sided dice to regulate movement. Even through Do Tell is not very competitive, the variation in 2d6 for movement can frustrate the player who rolls a 3 early on and never catches up.
The game offers eight pastel tokens, but it’s easy to add a mancala gem or a Monopoly boat to mod it for a larger group. Do Tell is so interactive that it works well with a large group, and each turn is independent of what’s gone before, so it’s a perfect choice to begin with on game night as you wait for guests to arrive.
Tell cards ask players to answer a questions and share something (The DoTell Facebook page offers a list of possible questions), and players quickly begin to share stories and laugh.
Do cards ask a player to sing a song, do an impression, dance, pose or act something out. These were a hit with strangers and long-term partners alike. Other players loved dancing or singing along, or just clapping after performance. One Do asks the player to be the devil preparing his to-do list, which is a fantastic chance to see if your friends would plan plagues and worldwide floods, or just legions of telemarketers and poorly designed parking lots.
A Mirror question has one player asking a Tell, instead of answering, and all the other players try to figure out what he or she would answer. When we started playing, Mirror questions slowed the game to a crawl, as players who didn’t know each other fumbled for some innocuous answer to a soul-baring Tell. But after a little while, answers to other questions made it easier and easier to guess. For a group of long-time friends, the Mirrors were hilarious.
The official rules for Mirror questions have a note that some Tells don’t make very good Mirrors, so they should be skipped. No legalese about how they should be skipped, no tiny icons in the corner of the cards to let know which ones should be skipped. We think this refers to the Tells that ask the player to draw a Risk or a Do, but we really liked this rule. Think this is a bad Mirror? Draw again! This is exactly what we were looking for in a party game.
On my second playthrough, we opened up the, ahem, adult Risk cards, glanced at them, and added house rules. Take a spicy Risk instead of a regular Risk at any time, but it can be swapped for a regular Risk if it’s too risque. Don’t like the card you’ve drawn? Swap any underwhelming Tell or too-wild Do for the next spicy Risk! (You can also get the Family Version for Spicy-free play, or just put those cards away when you have the fam over to play)
With the exception of one reference to American Idol, DoTell does not require pop culture knowledge (my one complaint with usual party games like Cranium or Apples to Apples is the number of celebrities I don’t know), but feel free to work random trivia or favorite songs into other questions.
Overall, this is a hilarious social game. Sure, you can race to the center, but the real focus is on laughing with friends.
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