As a now established fan of O’Brien’s show, I had been aware of the Mystery Hour Board Game for a while. This makes committing to answers for 3 points not as high stakes as it seems - a big payoff, but little to lose by sticking your head above the parapet. Mystery Hour is no longer only available one hour a week - play with your friends and family whenever you want!

Each player is encouraged to look through the cards they have been dealt, familiarise themselves with the text on each card and think up their own false answers (if they wish) before the game begins. If you’re a pedant, surely a yes or no should be enough to get points here, as it doesn’t ask you to justify anything). Mystery Hour is no longer only available one hour a week – play with your friends and family whenever you want. Every week, James O’Brien enlists the help of LBC listeners to solve the questions you’ve always wondered the answer to on ‘Mystery Hour’.Additionally the selection of games available, cards against muggles was a very hard game to find and I did not see it on many sites. Questions can come from the world of science, literature, language or be as bonkers as “Why do pigeons have manky feet? And even if you’ve seen them all, you would need to be something akin to Rainman to retain every factoid the game has to offer. I purchased a copy at my local games outlet and began wondering just how well the concept would translate to the table.

Every week, James O'Brien enlists the help of LBC listeners to solve the questions you've always wondered the answer to. Any game that gets people talking in the most natural way possible, outside the realms of in game objectives and rules, is a triumph in my opinion. The objective of the game is to convince other players with a plausible false answer whilst answering other players questions correctly. While this may sound a bit petty, space is a serious consideration for avid board game enthusiasts and families who need to justify a game’s place on their shelf.

There is a correct answer and a false answer on each card, but the player asking the question (the host) is allowed to invent a false answer of their own to replace the one on the card before the game begins. Three points are scored if a player answers the question posed correctly without hearing the correct and false answers first as prompts. There's one thing that's sure - you will know more by the time you've finished a game of the Mystery Hour board game than you do now! Replayability is always a consideration before deciding to invest time and money in any board game and I can hear the inevitable cries re how much worth the game will have once all the cards have been revealed. After all, they might know the answer and you, a brazen bluffer, are left red faced and eating dust.

On the plus side, the game is very educational, albeit dealing in quite obscure but interesting tit bits of knowledge. The informative, witty, conversational, argumentative board game based on James O’Brien’s Mystery Hour. I tried to invent one answer “on the hoof” - I was successful, luring one of the other players into choosing it as the correct answer, making sure I stumbled through the “correct answer” text to make it seem like I was making it up on the spot.In contrast to the disconnect many felt at this time, Mystery Hour almost felt like a greatest hits album of humanity: strangers from across the nation coming together for an hour a week, irrespective of political leanings and grievances, to learn from each other. Our group did spot one glaring omission in the rules though: there is no penalty attached to incorrectly guessing an answer before the correct and false answers are revealed.

With only three, we found ourselves embroiled in heated discussion fairly frequently, so you imagine what the game would be like during the festive season, with a room full of family members who only see each other semi regularly, all at each other’s throats over the wording of an answer. Our group of three were keen not to let these early setbacks dampen our expectations of the game, and we were subsequently pleased with the quick set up and speedy explanation of the rules. Every week, James O’Brien enlists the help of LBC listeners to solve the questions you’ve always wondered the answer to.For me, the discussion generated following the reveal of a correct answer is where the true value of the Mystery Hour Board Game lies. Mystery Hour is no longer only available one hour a week - play with your friends and family whenever you want. The game has long been coveted as a weekly prize for best answer and proof of credentials- the radio trivia equivalent to the Countdown teapot, but thankfully much more readily available.