Our step-by-step guide to the rules of how to play Blockbuster board game. This party game is part movie knowledge and part performance. You need to compete in a variety of different game modes to outdo your opponents and collect movie points that edge you towards victory. It is about nostalgia and love for popular movies, you do not need to know about blockbuster to play this title. The game is for 4 – 10 players at ages 12+. The rules for how to play Blockbuster are incredibly easy to pick up.
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HOW TO PLAY BLOCKBUSTER – WHAT IS IT?
Blockbuster is the cultural icon of the 90s and surrounding decades. When film studios decided they were going to take the “risk” of destroying their business by offering VHS tapes of their films for home consumption, the rise of the video store began. As the trend grew, Blockbuster came and swallowed everyone up. It became an experience, something to do on a weekend night, and an and important face for entertainment. Well, it crashed and burned and now is just a representative for the era.
This is a game that has nothing to do with the chain, but is about that nostalgia and the representation it had in the era. You have rounds like deliver a movie quote, or quick fire challenges that put you against an opponent. This is a team game that tests your film knowledge in different ways. Each challenge victory gets you a movie card in the genre in the challenge. The first team to collect all eight wins the game.
HOW TO PLAY BLOCKBUSTER – STEP BY STEP
Time Needed: Approximately 30 – 60 minutes.
This is a step by step guide for how to play Blockbuster the popular party trivia-esq board game. Additional notions and special rules can be found below the list. These will be referenced for your convenience.
1. SETUP | Put Out Parking Lot Game Board
To kick off how to play Blockbuster setup, you need to put out the game board. The play area represents a Blockbuster establishment. The board is the parking lot, then on top of it place the blue tube signpost, and on top of that the iconic Blockbuster sign.
2. SETUP | Split Into Two Teams
Regardless of your number of players, you need to have two teams. Split up the players and give yourselves a fun name (optional).
3. SETUP | Put Out Cards & Buzzer
To play the game you will need the movie cards, head-to-head challenge cards and the buzzer. Place these in the middle of the game area for all to access.
4. GAMEPLAY | Quick Fire Round
The opening of a round to determine advantage happens in a head-to-head challenge (think Family Feud style). One member from each team is up and gets ready to hit the game buzzer. A non-participating person flips over a “head to head” card and reads it. This will be something about movies that has lots of answers like “movies that take place on a boat”. A player buzzes in with an answer then their opponent has 30 seconds to buzz in with a new answer. This goes back and forth until a player can’t answer in time.
5. GAMEPLAY | Winners Choose Movie Cards
Now that there is a winner of the head-to-head challenge, the advantage is the winning team gets t choose the movie cards that go into the next round. All the cards fall into different genres, the idea is to collect them all, so this helps hedge the cards that are coming. The winners draw six movie cards, chooses three for them to take into their challenge and gives the remaining three to the other team.
6. GAMEPLAY | Setup Three Mini Challenges
The round after the quick fire is about each team doing their own thing. There are three mini games a team will need to compete in and the three cards each team just got correlates with that. They are – (1) One Word, (2) Quote and (3) Act It. The team players who competed in the head-to-head, now need to choose where to place each card so they can do this with their teammates.
7. GAMEPLAY | Start Timer
One team goes at a time, the head-to-head challenge winners go first. Hold down on the Blockbuster timer to start a 30-second timer. Once you let go you will have that period of time to do all three mini-games and hopefully get your fellow teammates to guess what you are trying to do. They are free to yell out answers whenever, there is no penalty for guessing wrong.
8. GAMEPLAY | Game 1 | One Word
Once the timer starts, the clue giver can say anyone one word in existence and based on that, teammates need to guess the film they are referring to. It doesn’t have to be from the move, though that probably helps, it just has to be enough info so your teammates can properly guess. Once they name it, flip over the movie card and move to the next challenge.
9. GAMEPLAY | Game 2 | Quote It
After you have completed one word or passed on it, you now do “quote it”. In this challenge, you must deliver a line of dialogue, word for word, to your teammate. They need to guess based on that. Once they name it, flip over your move card and move to the next challenge.
10. GAMEPLAY | Game 3 | Perform It
For the final challenge, you need to perform the movie on the card to get your teammates to guess. This is basically anything that doesn’t use words. Be as animated or subtle as you need to be to get your team to guess. Once they do, flip over you movie card.
11. GAMEPLAY | Steal Opponent Cards
If you get all three of your challenges correct and still have time left, you can try to steal from the opponents. Choose one of their three challenges, that should have corresponding cards in them, and pick it up as if it is one of yours. If your team gets it right you get to keep it if not, it will go back to the other team who also gets the bonus of the clues you gave.
12. GAMEPLAY | Collect Winning Cards
The second team follows the first taking the same exact performance steps. The only difference is that if cards were stolen from them, they are out of luck. After both teams are done, they keep the cards they flipped over. All the cards can be from one of eight genres and the idea is to collect one from each.
13. GAMEPLAY | Repeat Rounds
Once everyone does their team performance rounds and collected their cards, if no one has won the game, rounds are repeated. A new member from each team is selected to compete in the head-to-head challenge which then leads into a team round. This continues until the game is over.
14. WINNING | Collect A Film In Each Genre
There are eight different genres that one of the movie cards could fall into. Once a team has successfully collected a film from each of the genres, they win the game.
HOW TO PLAY BLOCKBUSTER – KEY INFORMATION
In the buzzer battle, if a player is unable to give an answer, their teammates may silently act out clues that may help their teammates get there.
The exact communication rules are vague. The idea is to have fun and a challenging back and forth amongst teams. Just either take things with a grain of salt or call people out if they are pushing it.
GAME CONTENTS
- 260x Cards
- 1x Game Board
- 1x Game Buzzer
- 1x Rule Book
HOW TO PLAY BLOCKBUSTER – IN CLOSING
We hope you can now say you know how to play Blockbuster. This trivia-esq party game lays on the nostalgia and will be a satisfying experience for anyone who loves movies. Instead of just answering questions, there are a variety of game modes that will test you knowledge and your ability to compete in different situations. You do not need to actually know anything about Blockbuster to play the game. The rules for learning how to play Blockbuster are incredibly easy but edging out your fellow players will take the right amount of finesse.
