Over the past couple of years, my best friend Libbie had mentioned to me that she got a laugh out of The Office,
so this Christmas I decided to get her The Office DVD Board Game, which
tests players' knowledge of the show with a variety of challenges. The
only trouble was that I'd never seen more than a snippet or two of the
show myself, so I wasn't sure how soon I'd be able to play it with her.
Imagine my surprise when my brother got the first four seasons of The Office on DVD for Christmas. Perfect timing!
I know of at least one other board game relating to The Office.
This one, which comes with cardboard stand-up figures of all the major
characters, includes only tidbits from the show's first three seasons.
The first time I played it, there were still several episodes of the
third season that I hadn't seen, so I was at a mild disadvantage, but
there's a pretty good mix of questions from different points in the
series.
While the questions are divided into several different
categories, identifiable by the icon (Stapler, Beet, Sheriff's Badge,
Dwight Bobblehead, Pepper Spray, Mug, Dice) on the screen that
corresponds to the one on the game board, most categories lead to some
type of trivia question regarding the show. For instance, you may be
asked to finish a particular quote or identify the character who said
it. Other questions are only very tangentially related to the show, like
asking for the director of a movie mentioned by one of the characters.
The most oddball category requires contestants to work together to
accomplish a physical task such as making paper dolls. This could be
fun, but it's also time-consuming, especially since we don't know ahead
of time what materials are needed. When Libbie and I land on this
category, we generally choose another category to play instead.
Additionally, there's some confusion about how the betting works in the
one category that requires it. You're allowed to put down more than one
Schrute Buck, but there doesn't seem to be any incentive to do so, since
as far as I can tell you're only supposed to get whatever the other
person laid down. Nothing in the rules seems to clarify this issue.
The board itself, and especially the currency, reflect the season three
finale in which Dwight Schrute has reason to believe that he is now the
manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin. As an incentive
program, he institutes Schrute Bucks, which feature his face in the
middle. In the game, answering questions correctly yields these bills,
and collecting enough of them will ensure that when you land at
Michael's desk, you'll win instead of being booted back to another area
of the game. Because it takes a while to accumulate a winning number of
Schrute Bucks, it usually makes more sense to take the long way around
the board, but if you want to take the short cut, you'll have to deal
with Dwight, whose desk serves as a roadblock for every player taking
that route. Given its unique position in the game, I would think the
Dwight icon would yield an especially challenging question, but these
queries tend to be about as basic as the others.
Seasoned fans of The Office
should enjoy the chance to test out their trivia knowledge, but it's
not what I'd call an intensive game. Most of the questions aren't
terribly tricky, and while the world-weary narration by H. R. man Toby
Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein) is amusing and helpful as you're learning
to play the game, it gets a bit old when he says the same things over
and over. Same goes for the small rotation of clips that often are not
directly related to the questions being asked. I'm sure Libbie and I
will play this game again, but it's not the type of game that can be
played for hours on end. It's fun, but it definitely could have been
better.
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