Get Excited about Stay Cool

• Posted on 4 September 2021
• By Fair Game
• Posted in Party Games
• 0

Stay Cool is a party game for 3 to 7 players. When it’s your turn, the players on either side of you will bombard you with simple questions to stress you out! Can you Stay Cool?

As a parent, an important lesson I want my kids to learn is how to successfully multitask. It’s rare in life when you can focus your attention completely on any given job (doubly so when you have kids), so being able to tackle many things at once is a great life skill to learn. That’s why I was pretty excited when I stumbled across the perfect game for them to learn this vital skill.

Stay Cool is a party game for 3 to 7 players that gives you basic tasks to do. When it’s your turn, the player on your left will ask you simple questions: What’s the number between 7 and 9? Spell the name of the current month. Where do plums come from? All easy stuff, right?

However, the wrinkle is (and there is always a wrinkle, isn’t there?) that at the same time, the player on your right is asking you to “write” answers to questions using lettered-dice to create three- or four-letter answers. So, while you are trying to answer what your favorite movie is, you also have to spell out “the opposite of less” (more), or “the name of a baby cow“ (calf). The game does add a few more elements as the rounds progress, but those are the basics.

One of the great things about Stay Cool is it doesn’t ask you to do anything complicated. All of its questions are simple and as long as you can spell basic words, you can play the game. However, when you mash together the requests of two demanding question-askers, it forces you to adapt to doing multiple things at once. Can I spell out the word “clap” using dice while also answering what the main ingredient in orange juice is?

Every question I’ve listed out so far is so easy that trivia buffs must be looking at this with a skeptical eye. Yet, once you are in the heat of the moment, things aren’t quite so simple. And if you are playing with kids, that’s another great lesson for them to learn: working under pressure. Rounds are only two minutes long, but the question-askers are instructed to give you no time to pause. You only have a few seconds to answer their question, or they will ask again… and again, until you answer.

That’s also why it’s important to keep all the above in mind when you are making your purchase decision. Some people don’t enjoy time constraints or being pressured. There are party games, like Medium or Wavelength, that are a relaxing and offer players opportunities to come up with the most clever clue for their teammates. Stay Cool is most definitely not one of those games. It’s a high-pressure experience that ratchets up the tension during each of its three rounds. If you are looking to relax and unwind, this probably isn’t the game for that. But, if you want a highly entertaining party game that will test your ability think when all eyes are on you, it’s time to Stay Cool!