Games to Play While You Count Down to the New Year!

Well, 2020 is nearly over and we are looking forward to welcoming the New Year promptly at midnight!  We’ll be staying up late and are planning our Countdown Games now! Each of these games features a timing element, meaning we’ll get plenty of practice counting down while we wait for the Ball to Drop!
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Our first three games are fully cooperative, fast paced games in which players trade information freely and work together to accomplish the mission within the time restriction!
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Players in 5 Minute Dungeon take on the role of one of ten heroes in an effort to get past monsters, traps, minions and bosses.  Working together, they play the appropriate cards to defeat the current card until they have defeated the boss!  And they must do this, for each level of the dungeon, within five minutes!  With successively more challenging levels, your team will have to work seamlessly together in order to beat the 

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final boss, The Dungeon Master! 5 Minute Marvel plays very similarly to 5 Minute Dungeon, except players assume the role of one of their favorite Avengers to defeat progressively more difficult missions.  Each mission must be accomplished within the same 5 minute limit, so teams will still need to work together to get through! ​

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In Fuse players work together to claim the right dice to defuse all of the bombs before the time runs out! Each round of Fuse spans only ten minutes, and players must work together to roll the dice and clear all of the bomb cards. Be careful to use as many of the dice as you can each round so that you don’t lose your progress and have to start cards over. ​Flatline takes place in the Fuse world and plays similarly to

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Fuse!  In Flatline, players are rolling and placing dice to clear patient cards in the busy ER!  Beware your time restrictions and the Emergency cards as you and your team attempt Flatline!

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Our next set of games require players to think like their teammates in order to win.  These games are generally team-based or competitive, but they still require a fair amount of teamwork!
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First up is Hive Mind, the game where players score points based on the similarity of their answers to the other beeples in the game!  The more answers you have like your fellow beeples, the further into the hive you are able to move!  Too many answers unlike the other beeples, and you’ll move right out of the Hive Mind and lose!

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Next up, can you get your teammates to guess the right word without using any of the Taboo words?  How many can you get them to guess in one minute?  Is it enough to beat your opponents? Play Taboo and find out! And then there’s Trapwords which plays similarly to Taboo, but your opponents choose the words that you cannot use and you won't

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know what they are until you use them!  In addition to these traps, you will also have two random curses in play that can completely change how you hint to your teammates! Teams play against each other each round and move through the dungeon until either, or both, teams end up in the same room as the wandering monster!  If either team is able to defeat the monster at that point, they win the game! ​

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These next two games still require you to think like your teammates, but they add an artistic wrinkle to your challenge!
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Telestrations combines the classic drawing game of Pictionary with Telephone! The first player will pick a secret word and sketch it.  Then they will pass their sketch to the next player who will attempt to guess what was drawn and then pass the sketchbook. Once the last player has drawn or guessed, the entire book is reviewed! If you choose to keep score, two scoring options are given in the rules, but we really love to just play.

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You’ve spotted a Monster who’s suspected of nefarious deeds, even if you only got a 20 second glance. The Department of Recording Anomaly Witnesses is here to get your statement and produce a sketch of who you saw.  Can you describe it well enough for the sketchers to produce a recognizable sketch?  Points are awarded to the sketcher who comes closest to what the witnesses saw! And then, it's your turn to sketch in MonDRAWsity!

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The next three games are app-driven, which we like a lot because the app takes care of the timing and we can focus on the game! ​
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Much like its longer cousin, Werewolf, players in One Night Werewolf will have secret roles that determine their win conditions!  Villagers are attempting to accuse a Werewolf, while Werewolves are attempting to get a Villager accused and survive the night!  In  One Night Werewolf, players will have to do all of their investigating in just 10 minutes!

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Players in Chronicles of Crime are attempting to solve one of the crime scenarios included in the game.  The cards and puzzles in the game are QR-code driven allowing you to scan and complete them on your favorite device. The app will take care of most of the minutiae of the game which allows you to focus on solving the crime! But you will still be up against a time-limit!

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Play though your favorite style of adventure in the Unlock! game series.  Complete puzzles, solve riddles and find the clues you need to get the final Unlock! code, all before your hour runs out!

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This game is different from the others we’ve talked about so far, but we had to include it in all of its chaotic glory!
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Each player in Stay Cool will be put through the wringer on their turn! The player on your right will ask you questions, which you will have to answer by spelling the answer out on dice.  The player on your left will also ask you questions, which you will have to answer verbally!  On the first round, (in a four to seven player game) a fourth player will flip your thirty-second timer four times for you.  On the second round, this player will flip your timer for you when you tell them to flip it.  On the third round, they will hide the timer from you and flip it for you when you tell them to.  During the second and third round, if your timer ever runs out before you ask for it to be flipped, your turn ends immediately!  The asking players will keep track of the number of questions you got right and the product of the right answers from the left and the right answers from the right is your score for the round.  The player with the most points at the end of the third round wins!

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And our final inclusion, Pendulum is a worker placement, engine building game that takes a bit longer than the others and is a bit more complicated!
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With a line like “Time Conquers All” on the box, we couldn’t ignore Pendulum in our discussion of games with timed components; in fact, Pendulum makes the most use of time and timing of all of the games we’ve included in this list.  Each player in Pendulum will be competing to advance their character’s interest in four areas with hopes of advancing far enough to be declared the next Timeless King of Dunya.  With each possible action only available while the sand in the hourglass falls and worker movements restricted to times when there is no hourglass in position, players have to be constantly conscious of time. Will you be able to manage your time and resources well enough to be the next Timeless King?

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Whew!  We’re excited to play some of these at our Countdown to the New Year!  Did we miss any you’re looking forward to playing while you wait for 2021?  Comment and let us know!