For over a year I've been enjoying a fun DVD-based board game called "Scene It?", which I suspect many of you who are reading this have played, heard of, or seen in stores. For those of you who haven't discovered this great game yet, here's the nickel tour:
There's a fold-out game-board (designed in a way to allow for long or short games) with spaces and pieces, and dice that you roll to move your piece around the board. Well, one of the die tells you how many spaces to advance, and the other tells you what to do when you get there. You may have to draw a "Buzz" card which tells you what to do (much like the "Chance" cards in Monopoly). You may get to answer a question that an opponent reads off of a question card (similar to Trivial Pursuit). Or, you might have the opportunity to play a question from the special DVD which comes with the set!
The DVD is essential to the gameplay; you can't win the game without correctly answering a question from it. During the gameplay leading up to that, you may get questions for just yourself ("My Play") or for the first person in the entire group to answer ("All Play"). In my experience, most players prefer the DVD questions when given the chance...that's the fun of this item! The DVD's challenges are usually based on film clips licensed from many studios. Questions based on the clips change with each viewing, and there are so many questions and clips it is difficult to see repeated challenges. There are also fuzzy pictures that challenge you to identify the celebrity shown, fill-in-the-blank questions, and other fun questions you've seen on game shows.
It's a great family event, where the gameplay is structured so that casual watchers can easily go toe-to-toe with aficionados of the movies whose clips are included. Wait...did I say "movies?" Yeah, well, the "Scene It?" board game isn't just for movie-lovers any more! The "Scene It? Jr." edition (pictured at the bottom), was aimed at the younger crowd and also the first version to include TV Show clips along with Film clips in the various DVD-based challenges.
Trade magazine
Video Store Magazine is
reporting that "Scene It? - T.V. Edition" is coming along this month, focusing for the first time on only television show questions! Readers of TVShowsOnDVD will certainly be interested to know that this "is built around trivia questions and clips from more than 100 TV shows, including
Mad About You, Charlie's Angels, Leave it to Beaver, Happy Days, M*A*S*H, and
24. " Over 700 questions await you on the disc, from studios like Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony/Columbia, and Universal...not to mention
TV Guide. And when the roll of the die won't let you run a DVD-based challenge, there are still more than 600 questions for you waiting on the trivia cards! And you'll move around the board using collectible TV-themed game pieces.
Video Store Magazine reports that the list price will be $44.99, and that for the first month its out - September - there is a deal in place for the item to only be available at Circuit City stores. The games - designed by Screenlife and distributed by Mattel - will then be made available in other retail stores including Wal-Mart, Target, Toys R Us, Suncoast/MediaPlay, Nordstrom, Barnes & Noble, and The Good Guys. That will be in October, when you'll also be able to buy it online at Amazon and other retailers, or just order it directly from the SceneIt.com website.
In her article for
Video Store Magazine, Holly J. Wagner quotes both Screenlife and Circuit City about their excitement for the launch of this product:
"We anticipate Scene It? TV Edition to be one of the hottest games in stores this holiday season," said Dave Long, CEO and co-founder of Screenlife, the company that makes the game. "Everyone has their favorite TV shows from the past and present, so it will be a great game for the entire family to sit down and play together."
"Consumer interest in television show DVDs is growing, and we feel that growth will translate into excitement for the new Scene It? TV Edition game," said Clif Denney, SVP, general merchandise manager for Circuit City. "We are pleased Screenlife has chosen Circuit City to introduce the game to consumers."
I cannot tell you how highly I'm anticipating this! The "Scene It?" games - and my family owns all of them - are one of the best ways to spend a few hours with anyone you want to have a good time with. Not to mention that it's great at parties. This is the one that TV-on-DVD fans will love the most, and it's headed your way soon! If you can't wait, then feel free to dive in to the already-widely-available "Scene It? Jr. Edition", which already includes many TV clips and questions, as we mentioned before. Since box art for the TV Edition isn't available yet, here's a look at the Jr. Edition so that people new to this game can get the idea:
*UPDATE (9/7):
Circuit City has the TV Edition in their weekly ad circular this week, showing it to be on sale for $39.99 until Sept. 11th (this may in fact be their everyday price; noone could tell me for sure). I wanted to purchase it and tell all of you what it was like, bring you screenshots, etc. However, I was unable to obtain a copy: the lady I asked for help yesterday at store #853 was very nice, looked it up in their computer and found there should be at least one copy in inventory. But she was unable to locate it, and her top red-shirted supervisor rather rudely asked her in front of me, "can't you do it yourself?" (no surprise, as this same fellow simply shrugged at me last Thursday when I first asked about the title). Ah, well: I expect this to be $5-$10 cheaper when Wal-Mart and other stores get it in early October...I'll wait. Thanks to the nice young lady, whose name I didn't get, for being as thorough as possible in her efforts; I was a retail manager for 10 years and I recognize good customer service (and bad). For now, though, here's a pic of the TV Edition (thanks to one of our readers, Kevin, for this):
