Title: Hit List
Published By: Gamewright
Released: 2020
Player Count: 4-99
Time to Play: 15 Minutes
Have tweens, teens or adult children? Looking for a game the whole family will love this holiday season? Check out Hit List by Gamewright! Hit List is the perfect holiday party game for families with kids ages 12+. Even grandma and grandpa are sure to want to join in on this fun! Not able to see your relatives this year, but still want to make some memories? With a few adjustments Hit List will even work wonderfully as a zoom party family game! Curious, how to make that happen? Read on and we will tell you!
In Hit List, players are divided onto two teams with the goal of scoring the most points by the end of the game. To get started, assign one person to be the scorekeeper. Then divide all players onto two teams. Place the card box, the timer, and the scoring tokens (face down) within easy reach of both teams. The team with a player who most recently made a list goes first. We will refer to this team as Team 1 and the second team will be Team 2.
One teammate on Team 1 takes a card from the box and reads it to themselves, careful not to show their teammates. This person is the designated “reader” of the round. Once they have finished reading the card to themselves, a player from Team 2 will flip the timer and the reader will read the category of the card out loud.
The rest of Team 1 then shouts out things that fit in the card’s category. Every time one of the answers matches a word on the card, the reader says “Hit!” and reveals one of the scoring tokens. If a teammate matches the pink-colored word on the card, two scoring tokens are revealed.
Team 1 continues guessing until either all the words have been guessed, or time runs out. If time is up and not all of the words have been guessed then Team 2 gets one chance to guess a remaining word on the card. If they correctly guess one of the remaining words they reveal a scoring token (or two if it was the pink word) and get those points.
Tally up the total points scored for each team and return the scoring tokens face-down to the center of the table and you are ready for the next round. Play passes to Team 2. This continues until each player has been the reader twice. At that point, whatever team has the highest score wins!
To adapt Hit List to zoom gaming, assign one person to be the moderator for the game. This should be a person who physically has a copy of Hit List. The moderator will essentially be the reader for the entire game. Split the remaining players into teams (making sure no players in the same household as the moderator can see the cards).
Have each team set up one person to be in charge of timing the other team. Have that individual get a 30-second timer ready, our suggestion is to use a cellphone timer if they don’t have a spare 30-second timer from another board game to use. Run the game as normal, however, the moderator will always be the reader, regardless of which team is up, and they will be in charge of flipping over random scoring tokens whenever a word is scored from the “hit list”. Once there have been 2x the amount of rounds as players the game ends and the highest-scoring team is the winner.
Now it’s time to talk about why we loved Hit List. First up, Hit List is a party game without being yet another play a card that best matches "this description" game. We also love how it is not geared for ages 18+ and is also not geared just for pre-teens. It really is a wholesome family game. Hit List reminds us of if Family Feud was turned into a tabletop game.
The challenge level for Hit List is also a plus. Some of the answers are easy to guess while others take a bit more out-of-the-box thinking which provides a good amount of challenge but does not require anyone to be a genius to figure out the answers. You don’t need to be a trivia master in order to be successful playing Hit List!
The game itself is also compact and easy to bring on the go to your next family gathering. It doesn’t take up much table space either, so if you are eating off tray tables in front of the TV, you are still good to go!
We also appreciate the wide player count. As long as you have at least 4 people, you can easily play Hit List! If you have a super high player count, just set a limit to how many rounds you want to play and it is just as easy to play with 16 people as it is to play with 4.
So long story short, if you want to shout at your relatives this holiday season, but not about politics, sports, who gained weight, or why you are still single, get Hit List and have a blast instead!
Pudgy Cat Games makes no profit off reviews. Should you wish to purchase Hit List, you can help support us by purchasing the game through our Amazon Affiliate Link below. It will cost you nothing extra, but will help support our site! More information can be found on Gamewright's website.