''Gift Trap'' is a 2006 indie

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

, invented by Nick Kellet (based on an idea inspired by his eldest daughter in 2004). ''Gift Trap'' is billed as "The hilarious

gift A gift or present is an item given to someone (who is not already the owner) without the expectation of payment or anything in return. Although gift-giving might involve an expectation of reciprocity, a gift is intended to be free. In many cou ...

-exchange party game". Gift Trap relies on the players' personal knowledge of each other, requiring the matching of the right gift to the right person.

Gameplay

Cards are dealt to the table depicting different gift items. Players use face-down tokens to mark the gifts they would give to each of the other players, and which gifts they would like to receive themselves. Tokens are then revealed, and players score according to the correlation of gifting and reception tokens.

Development

Madhouse Creative created the packaging and brand identity for the game. Images used for the gift cards in the game were licensed using a

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

Attribution license;

Crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

was used to collect images for use in the game via both a photo contest and through the use of online websites such as

Flickr.com Flickr ( ) is an image and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a common way for amateur and professional photogra ...

. Winners received a free copy of the game along with having their names included in the game. ''Gift Trap'' donated one copy to the charity

Right To Play Right To Play is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to use play to empower vulnerable children to overcome the effects of war, poverty, and disease. Right To Play's work is connected to the UN's Sustainable Development Goa ...

for every ten copies sold from the first production run of 10,000 games.

Reception

''Gift Trap'' It won a Major Fun Party Award from

Bernie DeKoven Bernard Louis De Koven or DeKoven (October 15, 1941 – March 24, 2018) was an American game designer, author, lecturer and fun theorist. He is most notable for his book ''The Well Played Game'', for his contributions to the New Games Foundatio ...

in September 2006, and was featured on CBC Venture's show Dreamers & Schemers in December 2006. Reviews by

Tom Vasel Thomas J. Vasel is a podcaster, designer and reviewer of board games, and hosted ''The Dice Tower'' podcast from 2003-2022, which has more than 300,000 subscribers. Vasel began publishing board game reviews in 2002 on BoardGameGeek, followed by Y ...

Bruno Faidutti Bruno Faidutti (born 23 October 1961) is a historian and sociologist, living in France, who is best known as a board game designer. Early life and education Bruno Faidutti studied law, economics, and sociology, eventually earning a doctorate in h ...

, Scott Nicholson and Greg Schloesser helped create early awareness for ''Gift Trap'' in the run up to its first holiday season. In 2007 ''Gift Trap'' won Party Game of the Year in France by

and Best New Party Game 2008 and placed in the Games 100 by

Games magazine ''Games World of Puzzles'' is an American games and puzzle magazine. Originally the merger of two other puzzle magazines spun off from its parent publication ''Games'' magazine in the early 1990s, ''Games World of Puzzles'' was reunited with ''Ga ...

in the USA. In 2009 Gift Trap won the Spiel Des Jahres: Special award: Party Game. ''Gift Trap'' has been translated into eight languages. In 2010 the game entered its sixth production run and added Chinese, Russian, Greek and Japanese editions.

References

External links

Gift Trap official website
(no longer related to the original game, as of May 2022) *
Bruno Faidutti's reviewSpiel Des Jahres - Sonder Prize for Party Game of the Year 2009Video Review by Scott NicholsonGame rules explained in French
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gifttrap Board games introduced in 2006 Quiz games Party board games Party games Canadian board games Spiel des Jahres winners