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FUNAGLE It's amusing to watch a dog run around the room barking and wagging its tail. But it's funnier still to watch its owner do it first. You'll get to see plenty of both with Funagle, a new board game people play with their dogs. HOW IT WORKS Players move tokens around the Funagle board, which features a "Wag Tag" in each space. Each tag has a written command. After landing in a spot, each player has 60 seconds to get his dog to follow that command, anything from shaking hands or rolling over to doing pushups or the moonwalk. To finagle your dog, it's OK to use verbal commands, gestures and treats. We used all three and were not above modeling the behavior we wanted our dogs to imitate. The end result was a room full of adults dancing with and barking at their dogs. We played the game with three dogs: an obedient and dignified Bichon Frise, a frisky, street-smart mixed breed and a good-natured but entirely uneducated beagle. There were no dog whisperers among us, but we each managed to coax our canines into doing a few tasks. Some, like getting a d og to lick your hand, were easier than others, like getting a dog to balance a treat on its head without eating it. If your dog successfully completes the task, you keep the Wag Tag. The player-canine team with the most tags at the end is the top dog. The commands come in categories, like athlete and chow hound, so you can play to your dog's strengths. But we found that winning was based less on the dogs' innate skills and more on our ability to communicate with them. The only real difficulty, as you might imagine, was getting dogs to sit still and not steal each other's treats. THE GOODS The game, created by Darf Inc. of Cedar Mill, Ore., is available at darfinc.com for $35.50. It's recommended for two to four players, 12 and up, and one to four dogs, 12 weeks and up. Players can post game videos and pictures on the Web site, as well as winning techniques. To see our dogs playing Funagle, go to fredericksburg.com. THE PLAYERS EDDIE Breed--Eddie Dog, aka Mutt Weight--26 pounds Age--4ish Favorite food--Bacon Hobbies--Eating bacon Claim to infamy--Stole block of cheddar cheese at family Christmas party Weakness--Handsome, male golden retrievers Best Funagle trick--Rolling over and over and over and Funagle Wag Tags--10 BAILEY Breed--Bichon Frise Weight--16 pounds Age--2 Favorite food--Beef tenderloin and asparagus Hobbies--Fetching, snuggling Claim to infamy--He's a serial stuffed-animal swiper Weakness--Upholstered furniture Best Funagle trick--Circling on hind legs Funagle Wag Tags--5 NOCCI Breed--Beagle Weight--20 pounds Age--7ish Favorite food--Whatever you're having Hobbies--Eating, belly rubs Claim to infamy--Opens cabinets, drawers to hunt chocolate Weakness--Chocolate Easter bunnies and tubes of Chapstick Best Funagle trick--Pushups Funagle Wag Tags--9 YAMODO! Serial doodlers and those prone to making stuff up will get a kick out of this game by Idea Storm. There are no winners and losers. Rather, players collaborate to invent definitions--and even illustrations--of nonsense words. HOW IT WORKS The set comes with about 150 cards, each one containing a made-up word and the first few doodles of a sketch. The first person writes a possible definition for the word and adds to the doodles to illustrate the word's meaning. The next person adds to that, and so on. The result isn't likely to make it into Webster's Dictionary, but it can be amusing. With options like "trampolation" and "stupifendibulus," some of the words look as if they come right out of a George W. Bush address. An unlimited number of people can play. It's a good tool for team-building or breaking the ice and could be used to enliven a classroom or make a staff meeting bearable. We circulated a few of the cards in our office, limiting each one to five or six participants. The results included: "comgrute," when computers get together to play the bongos while commuting and eating fresh pomegranates, causing most of the inexplicable backups on I-95. "mertzer," a cheap, old man on a park bench who pinches pennies and mumbles about the weather. "mylagoat," a large, fuzzy growth extending from the chin of a man. THE GOODS Players can upload their favorite creations to Yamodo .com, where the game also sells for $16.95. WITS&WAGERS What is the fastest speed ever achieved by a roller coaster? How much does the average American dog owner spend each year on dog food? How tall is the world's tallest LEGO tower? No idea? No problem. It's not important that you know anything to play Wits & Wagers. It's only important that you know who does. HOW IT WORKS A round consists of seven questions, all with numerical answers. Players hazard a guess to each question, then place wagers on whose guess is correct--or at least closest without going over. You can get every answer wrong. But as long as you bet on the right answers, you can win the game. Wits & Wagers is recommended for four to 20 players, ages 10 and up. It took about an hour for six of us to finish a game, which was perfect for our office lunch break. The savviest competitors among us employed a poker face--pretending to know answers when they didn't and feigning ignorance when they did--to throw the others. "This is psychological and sick," quipped one player, taken in by a bluff. Everyone had a good time guessing how many siblings Michael Jackson has (it's more than you think) and how many monologues Johnny Carson delivered (a whole bunch). Beware the quiet player in the group who acts like he doesn't know anything. He'll clean up. THE GOODS Created by North Star Games of Greenbelt, Md., Wits & Wagers retails for between $27 and $30 on Amazon.com and at Target. It will be played as a trivia event at this year's PrezCon. THE GAMES WE PLAY When we're not busy muckraking, Free Lance-Star staff members enjoy playing board games as much as the next person. Here are some of our favorites: "I'm a big fan of Cranium because it's a team game that's great at parties. Because it combines several types of games in one--trivia questions, charades, role-playing, drawing, sculpting, etc.--it allows every team member to shine in at least one area. Scattergories is another fun party game. The game poses several challenges. You have to come up with the answers in a short time period, but you also have to avoid duplicating others' answers. The friends I usually play with also try to dream up funny responses." --Betty Snider "I used to play a lot of Sorry!, Parcheesi and Chinese Checkers with my mother. They're all somewhat strategic but not super thought-provoking; hence a fun social game to play. Stratego was always one of my favorites also. It's not quite as intricate as chess, but a really fun strategy game. Lately, Liar's Dice has been high on my list. And Taboo is a great social game also. And then of course there are the fantasy sports, but I won't go there." --Bill Freehling "Scrabble is the No. 1 favorite in my household. Always get in a few games when my daughter and son-in-law are visiting. Mental stimulation and friendly competition are big pluses. Also, goes well with wine and fire in the winter. Scene It! also is a fun family game to play from the comfort of your couch with the game DVD and the TV remote. It tests movie knowledge. Players in their 20s and 30s usually do well; my generation fares poorly. --David Lyne "My favorite game of all time was a staple in my house as a child: Trivial Pursuit. In a family of competitors, it was one true way to prove you were the smartest at the table. And to this day, a holiday at home does not go by without pulling out the old board. The times in my house when I could prove I knew something no one else did were few and far between, but those couple of correct answers were way worth it in the end. Trivial Pursuit is one of the few games left on the shelves today that truly tests your smarts more than your luck." --Ellen Biltz "I played endless games of Candy Land, Clue and Monopoly when I was growing up. Candy Land is great for teaching kids how to play board games, and I bought my daughter a set as soon as she was old enough to play. Most recently, I learned how to play Mexican Train with dominoes, which is pretty cool for a group." --Cathy Jett "Sorry! is the big game in our house right now. My 5-year-old daughter likes it when she gets to bump one of our pawns back to start. We like the game because it's a lot more fun than Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders. Sorry! is manufactured by Hasbro. It's recommended for ages 6 to adult and takes about a half-hour to play." --Kim Baer "I love playing Boggle with my 9-year-old. I'm creating a wordsmith!" --Hilary Kanter "Board games are serious business in my house--I own about 50 (actually a small collection compared to the truly hardcore) from the usual standards like Monopoly, Life, Risk and Stratego, to super-complex military simulation games covering a variety of historical and hypothetical conflicts. I was turned on to board games by friends growing up. Many Saturdays, the world was conquered and reconquered over games of Risk and Axis and Allies. These days, my favorite games include Here I Stand (a six-player game covering Europe during the start of the Protestant Reformation), Twilight Struggle (a two-player game about the Cold War) and the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War series (a set of seven games that explores some of that conflict's most well-known battles)." --Justin Rice

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Date published: 1/27/2008

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