Off the Grid reviews Give me the Brain!
by Scott Jon Siegel 
{ Jun 1st 2007 at 9:58AM }
Every other week Scott Jon Siegel contributes Off the Grid, a column on gaming away from the television screen or monitor.
James Ernest's games are nothing if not creative. Give me the Brain!, from way back in 1997, is a card game set in a fast-food joint, which just happens to exclusively employ zombies. Oh yes.
Each player acts as one such undead employee, as all players compete to be the first flesh-muncher to leave at the end of the workday. At first glance, it's a simple card game concept: the first player with no cards remaining is the winner. The catch is the brain -- there's only one of them between all of the players, and you're going to need it to get a lot of the jobs done.
In Give me the Brain!, a singular 6-sided die acts as the zombies' only source of intelligence. Rather than eating it, players bid cards to gain possession of the brain, in order to complete some of the less menial tasks like defrosting parfaits and dealing with picky customers.
Like a rotting rugby game, part of the fun comes in not just acquiring the brain, but also in holding onto it. The player in possession of the gray matter must roll it to keep it, with each thought-required job having a minimum role necessary to retain control of the organ. Meanwhile, other players can play cards to force a fumble, or otherwise gain possession of the liberated lobes.
Like a number of Cheapass Games, Give me the Brain! has humor throughout, from the fanciful illustrations of zombies with "squirrel problems," to the excellent flavor text on each card; even to the dry wit of the instruction manual. Give me the Brain! is a fun game, but also a very quick one, taking around 15 minutes to complete. Like Fluxx, strategy's not always a big factor in the short-lived gameplay, and the oft-corrupted turn order can leave some players SOL as their zombie buddies dwindle their hand sizes and move closer to victory.
Still, 15 minutes of zombie food-prep mayhem is infinitely better than none at all. Those inspired should seek it out. And don't forget to pass the brain.
Scott Jon Siegel is a fledgling game designer, and fancies himself a bit of a writer on the topic as well. His words and games can be found at numberless, which is almost always a work in progress.
James Ernest's games are nothing if not creative. Give me the Brain!, from way back in 1997, is a card game set in a fast-food joint, which just happens to exclusively employ zombies. Oh yes.Each player acts as one such undead employee, as all players compete to be the first flesh-muncher to leave at the end of the workday. At first glance, it's a simple card game concept: the first player with no cards remaining is the winner. The catch is the brain -- there's only one of them between all of the players, and you're going to need it to get a lot of the jobs done.
In Give me the Brain!, a singular 6-sided die acts as the zombies' only source of intelligence. Rather than eating it, players bid cards to gain possession of the brain, in order to complete some of the less menial tasks like defrosting parfaits and dealing with picky customers.
Like a rotting rugby game, part of the fun comes in not just acquiring the brain, but also in holding onto it. The player in possession of the gray matter must roll it to keep it, with each thought-required job having a minimum role necessary to retain control of the organ. Meanwhile, other players can play cards to force a fumble, or otherwise gain possession of the liberated lobes.Like a number of Cheapass Games, Give me the Brain! has humor throughout, from the fanciful illustrations of zombies with "squirrel problems," to the excellent flavor text on each card; even to the dry wit of the instruction manual. Give me the Brain! is a fun game, but also a very quick one, taking around 15 minutes to complete. Like Fluxx, strategy's not always a big factor in the short-lived gameplay, and the oft-corrupted turn order can leave some players SOL as their zombie buddies dwindle their hand sizes and move closer to victory.
Still, 15 minutes of zombie food-prep mayhem is infinitely better than none at all. Those inspired should seek it out. And don't forget to pass the brain.
Scott Jon Siegel is a fledgling game designer, and fancies himself a bit of a writer on the topic as well. His words and games can be found at numberless, which is almost always a work in progress.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Anam @ Jun 1st 2007 10:23AM
Sounds overly luck-based, but could be fun for laughs for a couple of games.
Rocko @ Jun 1st 2007 10:26AM
I've been given the brain before. Not good times.
Cenotaph @ Jun 1st 2007 11:24AM
It's a decent game, but the end conditions are probably a little too random. 15 min. games are possible, but the games can also stretch out to 2-4 times that if people aren't getting the rolls they need. IMO, it's one of the better games from Cheapass, but that's not saying much.
Anam @ Jun 1st 2007 11:56AM
@Cenotaph
This is what annoys be about Cheapass games (please note that I haven't played any of them. This is based upon what I've heard.).
The entire idea, according to Cheapass games, is that most games are overpriced just for pieces, so if you include instructions and let players use pieces from other games, you could get games of the same quality for less money... but then from everything I hear, Cheapass games makes games that aren't very fun (at least, compared to many other games).
You could argue that it's still a good deal. Not a great game, but still cheap. But wasn't the entire idea that you could make cheap games that are the SAME QUALITY as higher-priced games, just because you don't sell pieces? I'm not seeing the "same quality" part.
Scott Jon Siegel @ Jun 1st 2007 12:19PM
@ Anam: I don't know who your sources are, but everyone I've talked to (who's played the games, mind you) LOVES 'em. Kill Doctor Lucky's a major classic, and Diceland (which we'll be reviewing in the coming weeks) often gets whipped out at PAX, and was part of last year's Omegathon.
It seems to me that Cheapass is stricken with a lot of second-hand heresy. My solution? Trust me more than other people. These are good, smart games.
Anam @ Jun 1st 2007 1:08PM
@Scott Jon Siegel
"Trust me more than other people."
I love that line. Kinda says it all doesn't it?
I was basing my opinion in part upon the reviews on www.joystiq.com (not sure if you do all of them or not). There were two other reviews of Cheapass Games' games that I've read on here and both said something to the effect of "great game, but could use more depth" or "really fun, but kinda short" and allow me to quote your own review here:
"Give me the Brain! is a fun game, but also a very quick one, taking around 15 minutes to complete."
If someone reviewed a full-priced board game and said that, would you be impressed? I doubt it.
Please note that I'm not claiming that Cheapass Games' games are bad, or even bad for the price... just that they don't sound like they're as good as full-priced games, which I thought was the whole point. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.
Anam @ Jun 1st 2007 1:16PM
By the way, I'm not trying to knock your reviews. I love the fact that you guys review this kind of stuff, 'cause I can't find many places that give reviews for less-mainstream games like this. So keep it up.
Mighty Ponygirl @ Jun 1st 2007 1:32PM
Give me the brain is an excellent game -- one of the first "alt" off-grid games I played.
The game is a lot of fun if you 1) read the card you play aloud instead of just putting them down, and 2) have a bit of beer on hand. :)
It never ceases to amaze me how difficult some people find this game, the instructions are incredibly easy: You have two hands, some jobs require two hands, some jobs require one, some jobs require a brain, some don't. And yet it seems like I spend way more time explaining to people that they can't play the pink brain cards unless they have the brain.
Ah well.
Shameless plug: I did a review of a bunch of off-grid games on my site a while back, depending on what sort of videogames you liked to play: http://www.mightyponygirl.com/feminist_gamers/?p=37
kleet @ Jun 1st 2007 2:14PM
Glad to see that sites like joystick still realizes that there is more gaming then sprites and controllers. Warms that heart of this old dice monkey :)
@Anam
if you are interested in more games then you knew about with reviews, pictures, and a stong community the I suggest you go look at boardgamegeek.com
Scott Jon Siegel @ Jun 1st 2007 2:22PM
@ Anam:
Heh, yeah, those reviews are all mine. I think I come off a bit more critical than intended in a lot of my reviews, but it's me trying really hard to be unbiased. In all of these games, the pluses far outweigh the minuses.
I also think that we can't judge a game based on its length of play. Give me the Brain! is meant to be a quick play experience. Sometimes you want a game that you can play for 15 or 20 minutes and then move on to something else. I do appreciate your honesty, though, Anam. Thanks for reading.
@ Might Ponygirl (great name, by the way!):
Thanks for the link. I'm always looking for more games to review, and I appreciate readers pointing me in the right direction. I'll have to check a few of those out.
And yes, all Cheapass Games practically REQUIRE that you read the flavor text out loud. Especially with this game's bid cards.
Anam @ Jun 1st 2007 2:27PM
@kleet
I've been to boardgamegeek a few times, and they seem to have good info on a lot of games, but it's completely inconsistent. You never know how much info they'll have on a particular game.
Thanks for the suggestion though.
Anam @ Jun 1st 2007 2:38PM
@Scott Jon Siegel
Yeah, game length isn't always the most important thing, but my friends and I play board games every other week for hours at a time, so we tend towards longer games like Arkham Horror or Avalon Hill's Civilization. But that's just us, so yeah.
Might I suggest implementing a rating system of some sort? The seemingly bad comments might not sound so bad if you gave the game a nice big number like 8 out of 10 or something. That way it would be more apparent that those problems weren't enough to bring the overall game experience down.
Just a suggestion.
kleet @ Jun 1st 2007 3:12PM
@anam
NP anam :) sorry that you have the info at BGG to be inconsistent. I have not had that issue but thats me your milage may vary ;)
Mighty Ponygirl @ Jun 1st 2007 3:23PM
I've been to BGG a few times, am I the only one who thinks it's a little cluttered?
Bakonon @ Jun 1st 2007 3:51PM
Give Me The Brain is fun but I prefer the czech translated version Dej Sem Mozek or something like that. Cheapass had it translated and released it in the states. The instructions have the translations back to English but you're not allowed to look at them until /after/ you've played the card. Adds a certain element of chaos that the game wasn't exactly missing before... but more chaos = more fun IMHO.
Anam @ Jun 1st 2007 4:10PM
@Bakonon
That's the craziest idea I've ever heard of. Which makes me think... why haven't more games tried to utilize the language barrier as a part of the gameplay?
The only other game I can think of to use language in an interesting way is Resident Evil 4, 'cause the (not really) zombies speak in Spanish, and if you translate it, they're saying all different sorts of cool stuff... not that it affects the gameplay, but it's still nifty.
sukigod @ Jun 1st 2007 5:32PM
Yeah, great game! This is just a down and dirty, fun game. Great for drinking parties, no super strategies or tactical thinking and definately for the short attention span crowd.
Similar to Lunch Money and Let's Kill, these games are simple and don't take themselves too seriously. If you looking for an engaging, engrossing simulation of long battles or thought heavy fare, this isn't for you. Play Risk then (or any other world domination game)