Visual creativity game where players interpret inkblots to tell stories. Has many models of play a few of which we review here. More on our website.

Story Play: The Simplest RoarStack game, for casual group play or children, is Story Play wherein you relate your card to the previously played card, possibly within the optional theme of the round. In Story Play, the added sayings and card value/suits don't matter, just the inkblots and the story. This is a good mode for young children and people more interested in collaboration and storytelling than the competition.

Point Play: If you want to keep score and compete with others, then you can add the dimension of point play where victory points are scored based on phrase+value on the story cards when the conversation of the group matches the phrase. You play your victory cards at any time. Victory points can come from mundane things in the conversation from the weather, to social relations, to pop culture. Your inkblots and storytelling can help lead the conversation, but you don't score victory points from what you do/say, only from what your friends do/say. This mode encourages talking with and listening to your friends and is great for party play. Even when it is not your turn to play a card, you need to pay attention and engage in dialog, maybe even trying to guide the conversation so you can score points. However, you also have to be active in the round to score so you have to keep that story going when it is your turn. Victory scoring is generally simple -- you play the victory card in front of you so just count them at the end of the round.

Gestour/Best play: A mode good for larger groups or big/noisy parties is Gestour/Best mode where everyone competes to try to extend the same story. A gestour is a teller of legendary tales. In this mode, the gestour starts a story and everyone picks a card from their had and tries to be the best extension of that story based on the inkblot on their card. After the cards to play are exposed, the gestour defines how they will define "best". There is an optional 30 second free-for-all period where everyone tries to convince others that theirs is the best extension. The gestour then begins calling on players who have 10 seconds to tell their card's story. The gestour picks the "best" answer and that person becomes the new gestour. Everyone else draws a replacement card. The first person out of cards wins the hand.

Twisted Play: Another mode of play is Twisted play, which is good for people who play traditional card games. In Twisted play, you use just the playing card deck, and play your favorite classic card game, with a twist -- you can use the inkblots to connect cards or as wild cards. For example, in Roaring Rummy you might connect a random card into a part of a straight by telling the inkblots' secret stories and connecting misfit cards to those before and after it in sequence. In Roaring Go Fish, when you pull a card from the pool you can also match it if you can tell the story to connect it to your matching card. In Solitary Stories you can play any card anywhere, but only if you can tell its story. Here, the role of the stories is to directly help you score points in a classic game. These add RoarStack Story play to existing games, making almost any card wild by using your creativity. It adds a new twist and often a lot more laughter, to well-known games.

Ideation Play: Another mode of play is ideation -- the generation of ideas related to solving a problem. Here, the player(s) takes a problem to be solved and uses the cards to help explore the problem, the constraints, and potential solutions. RoarStack is not only a fun game; it can also be an innovation tool for improving creativity and problem-solving. Creativity in innovation and problem-solving is often about linking disparate ideas together. Given a topic, people see different things in the cards, and seeing things in the cards makes connections to other ideas. In the words of the very innovative Steve Jobs: "Creativity is just connecting things." Dr. Boult, one of the creators, has use it in multiple corporate innovation tranining sessions and in the classroom with significant results.

Kickstarter edition sold out. Second edition printed in 2017 with new custom case and printed instructions. THe second edition also modified some of the "point" questions based on user feedback from the first edition.

Roarstack

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