No, not "Genius" Edition. "Genus." You just learned something.

If you’re talking Trivial Pursuit, you mean the Genus Edition, the classic edition, the hardcore edition. I’ve never met anyone that can play Trivial Pursuit Genus Edition at a masterful level.

I have found people that know a few things, but no one that destroys lives via their pursuit of the trivial. So should you play Trivial Pursuit, knowing darn well that you may not be very good at it? You’re darn right you should.

Trivial History

Let us go back a few years to 1979, (you remember 1979, right?). One night two Canadian gentlemen by the names of Scott Abbott and Chris Haney wanted to play Scrabble, but they discovered that too many pieces were missing. So they did what anyone else would have done and invented their own game.

Okay, just think of how smart these guys must have been, alright? When you can’t find all the pieces to Clue, do you think to yourself, “You know good chums, I do believe we shall play a game that tests our knowledge at a level beyond the heads of most learned men!” No, you search for Candyland and call it a day. These two guys went ahead and invented a game that made an entire generation feel stupid and STILL people play it. Genius!

Trivial Pursuit Rules

Fun fact: This actually ruins families rather than brings them together.

If you haven’t played Trivial Pursuit in a while here are the rules: Someone asks you a question and you fumble around unless magically you actually know the answer.

Okay, yes, you roll a die to move and when you land on a colored space you must answer a trivia question relating to the category. Blue is Geography, pink is Entertainment, yellow is History, brown is Arts & Literature, green is Science & Nature, and orange is Sports & Leisure, (remember those in case one of the questions is, “What color is History associated with?”).

If somehow you answer a question correctly, you will be given a colored wedge to fit into your marker. When you have one wedge from each category you must move into the center of the board and answer a trivia question selected by the other players before you can win the game.

Naturally, the other players always select the category you know the least from because they aren’t really your friends and don’t really want to see you succeed.

Trivial Editions

Disney equalizes everything....

Go ahead and get this one here.

Okay, I’ve found a game that comes close to Monopoly’s sheer empire of editions: Scene-It. Actually, it should be spelled “Scene-It?” but I can’t bring myself to use a question mark in a name on a constant basis.

Mixing board games with being lazy on the couch, Scene-It is the quintessential DVD game for our generation. The previous generation didn’t have a quintessential DVD game, though checkers do somewhat look like DVDs, so it’ll have to count.

This is usually the point where I give a bit of history, but there isn’t any history to give. Scene-It popped up on the scene (I swear I didn’t intend that pun), not too long ago and descended upon group gatherings like vampires are currently descending upon tween girls and Hot Topic.

A Simple Concept

Posting this picture inflicted vast amounts of pain upon myself, but this version will sell better than all versions combined.

The core game revolves around the usage of the included DVD that contains clips from movies both mainstream and obscure. These video challenges are broken into single team events and “All Play” challenges that allow any team to guess the correct answer. You’ll move your team’s piece around the board and compete in these challenges to continue moving, though it isn’t just based on the DVD as there are trivia cards about movies and such that will weed out the average moviegoer from the guy with his own seat in the theater.

Typically, every group has at least one guy that insists upon playing Scene-It, and typically that guy is a master of all things relating to movies. Luckily for everyone out there, a version of Scene-It exists that you probably excel at more than anyone else. A good equalizer is the Disney Edition of Scene-It since most everyone has seen enough Disney movies to hold their own in any test of said knowledge (and if they can’t then they ...

The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer has infected vampire-lovers of all ages. The young adult trilogy about a high school girl making some tough decisions has become a movie with plenty of fans, managing to reach even more people when it hit the big screen. With more fans comes more fun and games for those who love this story. My favorite of these games is the Twilight Board Game which, in essence, is a trivia game.

The more players the better with this game since many of the questions have to do with the other players. The trivia involved is not just about the movie, but conflicting story-lines between the book and movie details, giving fresh answers to the true Twilight aficionados.

The board is covered with stills from the movie with short descriptions of the shot (“Forks” or “the cliffs”) and the goal is to move around the board collecting scene cards while correctly answering the trivia questions and challenges. The basic idea of the game is pretty simple to grasp once the game gets rolling.

If you’re a seasoned board game player , you’ll get the hang of it fast. However, there have been complaints about the thoroughness of the included instructions.

The game pieces are cutouts of the Cullen family crest and, while not terribly sturdy, they are not integral to the game itself & can be easily replaced with pieces from other games when they crumble from excessive use.

Age range on this game is 8-15 which is perhaps a bit young for some of the co...