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Play It By Ear box art
1991 Ranked #19,888

Play It By Ear

This audio trivia game has players answer questions tied to sound clips and reach the winner’s circle first. Early category choice lets players favor strengths, but opponents choose categories later and turn the route into a broader challenge.

Electronic Memory Storytelling

Players

2-12

Play time

Not listed

Age

16+

Complexity

1.6/5

Rating

5.74

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.0/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.8/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

Play It By Ear is an audio trivia and challenge game. Components include a set of trivia cards, a game board and tokens and a game cd.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Play It By Ear is an audio trivia and challenge game. Components include a set of trivia cards, a game board and tokens and a game cd. During the game, players select one trivia category (pop music, movies, tv, news etc…) from which they must answer a question. Each question is linked to one of 99 sound clips on the cd. The difficulty of the questions varies from simply identifying where the clip originated, to providing information loosely related to the sound. Some categories are more "activity" based, such as short term memory, where one has to identify something heard in the clip. In the earlier parts of the game, players can choose their own categories while in the latter, the opponents select. In answering questions, players move around a small circular board. The first to make it to the "winner's circle" is the victor.

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
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Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–12
Best with
2
Play time
60 min
Age
16+
Complexity
1.6/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Barry Levine

Publishers

1
Rykodisc

Linked items

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