Website to learn more and purchase = https://itsinthegroovegame.com/
Find them on Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/ItsInTheGrooveGame
Disclosure: I received a copy of this game from the game creator for free for the purpose of reviewing.
Musical lyrics are a strange thing. When we listen to music, our brains interpret the sounds, and quite often, for many of us, those lyrics are nothing like the actual song. It is hilarious to listen to people sing along to a song, but with their butchered interpretation of the words. This happens to me all the time. Now, what if we flipped the script? Instead of trying to sing the words with the tune in the background, what if we had to figure out the song without the music? Not only that, what if we had to figure out the song with words that weren’t in the first verse or the chorus of the song? That, my friends, will show us exactly how well we know our music.
Short Explanation of How to Play
It’s In The Groove is a simple enough game to understand. You say lyrics of a song that are on a card, and the other players need to guess which song the lyrics belong to. If someone guesses the song, they get that card. If no one can get the song, guessing the artist can earn the card. If you are formally playing by the rules, then each player gets four cards to read to the other players. Each turn a player will read one card for others to guess, and play will go around the table four times. Since the core of the game is reading and guessing cards, the core rules can be modified for you to play a game as long or short as you want. Quite simply, read through the cards until you decide you are done. If playing by the formal rules and there is a tie, then every player takes another card, and a 5th round will happen, (hopefully) creating a break in the tie for a winner. There are different genres of music that you can choose from when deciding what to buy: Country, Christian, Covers, and Motown. There is a board game coming in the summer of 2023 with other music that spans the 1950s through the 1990s, and I would anticipate more expansions in the future.
My YouTube review of the game gives some examples:
Why it Works/Doesn't Work For Our Family
What Worked: This game worked really great when we played it with my parents and my wife’s parents. The Motown cards fit the era they grew up in very well, and the wide range of music in the other genres worked well for them since they had experienced many of the songs in their lifetime. The simplicity of the game was great, as we brought the cards with us to places that we went and we could pull them out and play a few rounds, or even just read a few cards and guess together for fun. Many of the songs were ones we knew so it was fun to figure out the right answer, or to get the answer wrong and figure out where in the song that the lyrics went. It was a good time.
What Was Challenging: Our kids knew a few of the Christian songs from church and other places they had heard them, but they had not been exposed to many of the songs so we did not try too hard to play with them. The breadth of one’s knowledge in each genre makes a big difference. I see this as a fun spin on games like Trivial Pursuit, and this game includes similar challenges. If you know the music, it is a fun challenge to figure it out. If you don’t, you are lost. My dad, who is very musically inclined, brought up the point that if someone is really good with the tunes, but isn’t great with the words, this may be hard for them as well. These challenges are not a dealbreaker, though, because if you don’t know one song, you can move on to the next one quickly and get back in the game.
Why it Works/Doesn't Work With Friends
My friends who I game with have never been big trivia players, so I know that setting wouldn’t be the best for me to play this game, but it worked well with the older members in my family.
Teacher's Corner
This game would be a fun activity in a music classroom setting as a fun change of pace activity. The game could be modified to have the students hum, sing, or play the tunes to practice skills that they would use in that course of study.
Overall opinion, rating, and recommendation
6 year old son - He didn’t really play it.
9 year old daughter - She only played it a little bit, but she only knew a few of the songs in the Christian category, and not the others.
Mine - I will rate this game Casual Adult. I love the music theme, and I have always enjoyed trivia games so it is fun to try and figure out the lyrics from the not so well known parts of famous songs. It is an easy game to play with a small group or even just a couple of people, and it is easily transportable to pull out at a moment’s notice. It is easily modifiable, as you can shorten or extend the game, sing the lyrics, or hum the tune if you want to change the game up to keep things interesting. If you love trivia games, enjoy music, and get excited imagining what you will sing at karaoke night, this game is right up your alley. If you don’t like trivia, don’t like music, or have atrocious lyrical memory, then this game might not be for you. This will be a game that I bring along to family get-togethers and casual party game nights in the future. Taking it and adding it to a bag to take along is a low burden, but it is great to have available to play, and is easy for anyone to pick up and learn.
Website to learn more and purchase = https://itsinthegroovegame.com/
Find them on Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/ItsInTheGrooveGame
Games with similarities with this one at each rating level:
Casual Family: Scene It
Heavy Family: Cranium
Casual Adult: Boomers vs. Millenials / Battle of the Sexes
Heavy Adult: - Trivial Pursuit (Based on content knowledge required, not complexity of the game)
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