Designed by Oliver Sabot and Adam Plunkett, Tall Tales is a storytelling game where 3-12 players are using the game's pictorial prompt cards to compose the chapters or scenes for a story.
Tho' it's notionally a party game, it's not a game you'd want to play at a real party because it involves players literally writing their own individual paragraphs and scenes. Players read out in full and then precis each other's scenes, and they then vote to determine which scene goes into the story. The voting also involves players scoring points which contribute to determining a winner in what is described as 'a game of competitive story writing'.
Once the 'quest' or mise-en-scene has been set, in each of three subsequent rounds, cards are selected to determine the criteria to be used in voting, as well as a key phrase that every player has to work into their entry for it to be valid. It's these cards that inject both challenge and fun into the game, especially as players vie to make the most creative use of the chosen key phrase.
The game element in Tall Tales is in the points scores for winning votes but you'll find that the fun in this game is to be had from the stories that emerge rather than from any scramble over points.
As with almost all storytelling games, what you get out of Tall Tales depends very much on the players and what they are prepared to put in. If you're up for the literary challenge, this game makes for a potentially very creative alternative to Charades, and we could also see great use for Tall Tales in schools as an educational device for encouraging pupils to develop their writing, precis and analytical feedback skills.
Shown here on Board's Eye View is a preview prototype of Tall Tales produced ahead of the game's campaign on Kickstarter. There's just a couple of days left to run on the KS, tho' the game has already more than met its funding target so if you've missed the Kickstarter, you might still be able to make a late pledge. Click here to link to the KS campaign.