Say What? It’s a new Electronic Talking Game Guaranteed to Entertain and Frustrate You

How many of you are familiar with electronic talking games such as “Bop It”, “Torque” and “Tiger talking Tennis”?
The Radica Corporation has recently come up with a new game of this type called “Say What”.

Say What is a tabletop game with five balls situated around a half-circular unit. The controls and speaker are located on the front of the unit. The object of the game is to arrange famous phrases into their proper order. The phrases are divided into five portions and are read out of order. The player rearranges the five balls to obtain the correct order.

The game has 300 phrases that may be divided into a variety of configurations. Sometimes one ball is equivalent to one word in the phrase. Otherwise, each ball may contain more than one word. The famous phrases are taken from a variety of sources including literature, movies, music and television commercials. For example, let’s take an old TV commercial. “Maxwell House: good to the last drop. The game might present this phrase in the following mixed up order. “Good to the drop last Maxwell House”.

The game can be played in two modes with anywhere between one and five players. The first of the modes is time mode. In this variation, the player must get the phrase in the correct order within a specified time. The other variation is called guess mode where the player must solve the phrase in a set number of guesses.

The instructions recommend that players be eight years old and up. But with the difficulty level set to easy, I observed a seven-year-old child playing the game successfully. In easy difficulty, two of the balls are already in the correct position at the start of the game. If the player tries to remove one of the balls that are already in the correct position, the game emits an annoying error sound indicating that the ball should be replaced.

Say What can be purchased for around $24.00 from Amazon.com or from your favorite department or toy store. For an audio demonstration of Say What, go to http://www.blindcooltech.com and click on the Say What link. This game is fun to play alone and even more fun at a party.

This game is completely accessible for blind persons with one exception. The instructions are not scanner friendly and I couldn’t find instructions on the internet. But, for your convenience, I have written a detailed description of the controls and their functions. The game requires 4 AA batteries, not included.

With the unit in front of you, going from left to right:

1. The first small button (left most) is the “starting over” button. Hold down for at least .5 seconds at any point in the game and you will hear “starting over.
2. Moving to the right, find a slightly larger button. This is the mode/hint button. Before beginning a game, you can select one of four modes. Time mode, guess mode, Extreme time mode and extreme guess mode. If not pressed, this function defaults to time mode.
   1. IN time mode, you must get 5 phrases in the correct order in increasingly shorter periods of time.
   2. Similarly, in guess mode, you must get 5 phrases in an increasingly smaller number of guesses. There is no time pressure in guess mode.
   3. IN extreme time mode, you must complete 5 rounds and you only get 10 seconds for each.
1. IN extreme guess mode, you have to get 5 phrases, and you only get one guess. During the game, the mode/hint button gives you a hint as to the origin of the phrase. . (IE, movies, television, music).
2. Moving to the right, find a slightly larger button, the “player/score” button. Before beginning a game, this button is used to choose the number of players,

from 1 to 5. IF not pressed, this function defaults to 1 player. During a game, this button will give you your current score.
3. Directly above the player/score button, find a small skill level button. IF not pressed, skill level defaults to hard. In order to use this button, it must be preceded immediately by a press of the player button. The skill levels are easy, medium and hard. You can set different skill levels independently for each of the players. This is a good way to create a fair game between players of differing skill levels.
   1. Hard level means that all five balls are in the wrong position at the beginning of the game.
   2. Medium level. One of the balls is in the correct position. IF you pick up the correctly placed ball, you will hear a sort of banging sound. IF you hear
      this sound, quickly put that ball back as it is already in the correct position.
   3. Easy level. Two balls are in the correct position.

1. Moving to the right, find the start/solve button. This is the largest button on the unit. Press to start all games and when you think you have solved the puzzle.