Outset Media's Guesstimation is essentially a bumper box of trivia questions that all have numerical answers. The 430+ questions are divided into six categories: 'Dollars & Cents', 'Time Traveller', 'World Records', 'Numbers in Nature', 'What Year Was That?' and 'No Way!', and the game comes with a giant wooden custom six-sided die that's rolled to determine the category from which a question should be taken.
The questions all have the answer clearly visible to the person reading it out so you need to play with one person each round as the questioner with the other players competing to write down their guesstimated answers, with the card going to the player whose answer is closest. That player then becomes the questioner in the next round. The rules suggest playing to be the first to collect 12 cards, or 6 cards for a shorter game. A key strength of trivia games like Guesstimation is that there's really no set upper limit for the number of players but if you are playing this as a party game with more than five players we'd recommend the 'short' game to avoid Guesstimation outstaying its welcome. It's a game tho' that lends itself to team play, with teams arguing among themselves over the answer they'll submit.
Trivia quiz games are only ever as good as the questions in the box. Tho' a couple of the categories in Guesstimation are really potpourri, there's a good broad range of questions. You might assume from the game's North American origins (Outset Media is a Canadian publisher) and the fact that one of the categories is 'Dollars & Cents' that the questions would have a strong North American focus but in our plays at Board's Eye View we found almost as many questions on UK topics as questions geared to a US audience.
Guesstimation naturally invites comparison with Wits & Wagers (North Star): both are games where players are vying to be closest to a numerical answer. With its board and tokens for doubling down on your answers, Wits & Wagers feels like the more polished game. Guesstimation tho' isn't just playable in its own right: if you already have Wits & Wagers you may well find it worthwhile picking up Guesstimation not just to play on its own but also to use as a source of additional questions which will add a new lease of life to your game.
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