03 December 2024
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Replace Trivial Pursuit with CDSK in your board game library, in this fun push-your-luck question game.
Written by Charlie Pettit
“This is the most exciting–” my heart soars! “trivia game you could ever play”...my heart sinks. That was my first reaction to CDSK, because trivia games always feel a bit exclusive of gamers at the table. We’ve probably all played Trivial Pursuit and ended up bored, because it only takes one know-it-all, or a few difficult questions to feel like you’ve just been a pawn in someone else’s ego boost. There’s also the hobby board gamer question – is a trivia game complex enough to be considered a modern board game?
Admittedly, seeing that even in CDSK you have to move your token around to the end to win (not a roll and move, but with that vibe) didn’t help my concerns, but equally, when a friend invited me to a gaming cafe when I went to stay, and enthusiastically told me she was part of a monthly board game evening for Trivial Pursuit, it seemed like a perfect time to put it to the test. I reasoned, let’s start on familiar ground, and then we’ll move on to different games.
Trivia Games
Rather delightfully, my reticence was proven entirely unfounded, and in fact, it really is an utterly fantastic trivia game, because it’s not rooted in what you know, but essentially in betting on your own confidence and pushing your luck. It’s not reinventing the wheel where either style of game is concerned, but it just does it very confidently and very easily, in a way that has meant it’s come out with a whole new set of players.
How to Play CDSK
Enough of my waxing lyrical, let me explain and you’ll see why. CDSK is a race to the end of the board. You place something of yours on as the token – admittedly this threw me, suddenly patting my pockets for trinkets, of which one of my rings has become the default – and progress around the track, hopefully quicker than your opponent does. In order to move, you have to answer a question correctly. The questions are picked based on the colour you’ve landed on, but you’re only given a topic – for instance, Board Games – and you must then answer how well you know Board Games on a scale of 1-10. Another player reads out the corresponding question, and if you answer correctly, you move forward the same number of spaces as the difficulty you selected.
What I like about it the most is that the lower questions are really genuinely easy. To move forward one space, you will have a question that is painfully obvious, has only one answer, or even any answer. So you could reasonably play it safe if you’re unsure. But you’ll need to think about pushing your own luck a little further in order to win. How well do I know Taylor Swift? Hmm, a cautious 7? But I need to get ahead this round… stuff it, let’s go 9. Eek. Oh thank goodness, got that right. But next up they’re asking me about roads, and that's 2 at best…
CDSK Questions
The questions are sorted into themes – Curious (precise subjects), Delightful (things like movies and sports), Seasoned (they describe this as grown up stuff), and Knowledge (science, nature, history, etc)– which is how the game gets its name. In honesty, the questions are so varied that in the games I’ve played of, no one ever really groaned when one specific category came up, and I had to check back to the instructions to make sure I wasn’t talking nonsense. Well, on this topic at least.
If you’re wanting a full board game night, CDSK isn’t going to rank next to something like Terraforming Mars, they’re just entirely different entities. However, if either a) you’re playing with non hobby board gamers or b) you just want something light and fun with a push your luck twist and some fun questions that don’t make you feel like you’re lightyears away from Mensa, there’s a lot of fun to be had with CDSK.
You should play this game, as surprising as it is to find fun in simple trivia, it is great fun and has no barrier to entry.
Designer: Vincent Burger
Publisher: Randolph
Time: 40+ minutes
Players: 2-16
Ages: 14+
Price: £30
What’s in the box?
- Game board
- 216 Basic cards (in 4 categories)
- 60 Challenge cards
- 48 Hurry Up & Win cards
- Rulebook
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