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Guess Who?

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This article is about the game. For other uses, see Guess Who.

Guess Who?
DesignersTheo Coster
Ora Coster
Theora Design
IllustratorsTheora Design
PublishersMilton Bradley
Publication1979; 45 years ago (1979)
Years active1979–present
GenresBoard game
LanguagesEnglish
Players2
Playing time20'
Age range6+

Guess Who? is a two-player board game in which players each guess the identity of the other's chosen character. The game was developed by Israeli game inventors Ora and Theo Coster, the founders of Theora Design. It was first released in Dutch in 1979 under the name Wie is het? Milton Bradley then produced the game in the United Kingdom, and it was brought to the United States in 1982.[1] It is now owned by Hasbro.

Gameplay

A group of children playing the game

Each player starts the game with a board that includes cartoon images of 24 people and their first names with all the images standing up. Each player selects a card of their choice from a separate pile of cards containing the same 24 images. The objective of the game is to be the first to determine which card one's opponent has selected. Players alternate asking various yes or no questions to eliminate some of the candidates, such as:

  • "Does your person wear a hat?"
  • "Does your person wear glasses?"
  • "Is your person a man?"

The player will then eliminate candidates (based on the opponent's response) by flipping those images down until only one is left. Well-crafted questions allow players to eliminate one or more possible cards.

Editions

Special editions which have different faces have been released, including Star Wars (released 2008 with 24 characters, and 2014 with 15 characters), Batman (released 2019), Animal Crossing (2019), Marvel Comics (released 2022, 24 characters), Super Mario (2022), Disney, Mr. Men, Peppa Pig and The Simpsons. There are smaller, "travel" editions that have only 20 different faces. In 2008 and 2010, extra and mix and match games were released.[citation needed] A computer game based on the series was released in 1999 by Hasbro Interactive/Infogrames.[2] Also in 1999, a Scratchcard version of the game was released.

Advertising

In the United States, advertisements for the board game often showed the characters on the cards coming to life and making witty comments to each other. This caused later editions of such ads to carry the spoken disclaimer line "game cards do not actually talk" to meet Federal Trade Commission advertising guidelines requiring full disclosure of toy features unable to be replicated with the actual product.[3]

Strategy

Popular belief is that a binary search is the most efficient approach to the game, with which each question halves the number of possible identities.[4] This can be applied by asking complex questions - such as "Does your character have red hair, or glasses, or a big nose?" - where a yes or a no eliminates exactly half of the remaining characters.[5] Such a strategy takes only four questions to reduce the field to three people, giving the fifth question a 50/50 chance of identifying the opponent's character.

The game was strongly solved by Mihai Nica in 2016.[4] Nica's research found that while a player was ahead their optimal strategy was a binary search, and when behind they should instead make "bold plays" that had a chance of narrowing things down significantly, in order to pull ahead of the other player. Using this method, the first player has a 63% chance of winning under optimal play by both sides.

Use in education

Guess Who? has found use in an educational context,[6][7][8] including the development of deductive reasoning skills. In addition, the game can be used for a wide range of speech and language development goals, including:

  • Articulation
  • Comprehension
  • Question formation
  • Describing salient features
  • Vocabulary in foreign languages

Criticism of lack of diversity

Modern commentators[who?] have noted a bias toward white and male characters in Guess Who?. In 2012, a freelance journalist wrote to Hasbro on behalf of her six-year-old daughter, asking why there were only five female characters to choose from, against nineteen male. Hasbro's response noted that each characteristic in the game – such as wearing glasses, or having red hair[9] – was based on a numerical equation, and deliberately appeared exactly five times. The company wrote that the game was intended to "draw attention away from using gender or ethnicity as the focal point, and to concentrate on those things that we all have in common, rather than focus on our differences".

In response to Hasbro's statement, the mother said that she thought identifying physical differences was "the whole point" of the game, and asked "Why is female gender regarded as a 'characteristic', while male gender is not?"[10] The New Statesman criticized the "tone-deafness" of Hasbro's remarks.[9][11]

Some editions of the game since the early 2000s have included more women.[10]

The original version of Guess Who? featured only one non-white character – Anne, a black woman who was redrawn in a subsequent edition as white. More recently, Hasbro has redesigned the board to feature a more racially diverse set of people.[12]

Television adaptation

On April 19, 2021, Deadline Hollywood announced that a planned unscripted television adaptation of the board game was in early development at NBC and will be produced by Endemol Shine North America and Entertainment One (Hasbro's subsidiary).[13]

People's names

A giant-sized game of Guess Who? at the Spiel festival, 2008
Name Also known as Gender Eyes Hair Beard Moustache Big nose Glasses Hat Introduced Retired Notes
Al Alfred, Stephen Male Blue Light brown No Yes No No No 1980 —
Alex — Male Brown Black No Yes No No No 1980 2018
Amy — Female Brown Highlights No No No Yes No 2018 —
Anita — Female Blue Blonde No No No No No 1980 2018
Anne — Female Brown Black No No Yes No No 1980 2018 Absent from 1998–2002
Ben — Male Brown Dark brown No No Yes Yes No 2018 —
Bernard — Male Brown Dark brown No No Yes No Yes 1980 2018
Betty — Female Blue White No No No Yes No 1999 2001
Bill Phillipe Male Brown Light brown Yes No No No No 1980 2018
Carmen — Female Brown White No No No No No 2002 —
Charles Hans Male Brown Blonde No Yes No No No 1980 2018
Claire Sarah Female Brown Light brown No No No Yes Yes 1980 2018
Daniel — Male Green Light brown Yes Yes Yes No No 2018 —
David Luke, Lucas Male Brown Blonde Yes No No No Yes 1980 —
Emma — Female Brown Light brown No No No No No 2018 —
Eric — Male Brown Blonde No No No No Yes 1980 —
Farah — Male Blue Black No No No No No 2018 —
Frans Frank Male Brown Light brown No No No No No 1980 1998
Gabe — Male Brown Black No No No No No 2018 —
George Joe Male Brown White No No No No Yes 1980 2001
Herman — Male Brown Light brown No No Yes No No 1980 2018
Holly Katrin Female Brown Dark brown No No No No No 1999 2018
Joe — Male Brown Blonde No No No Yes No 1980 — Absent from 1998–2002
Jordan — Male Brown Highlights Yes Yes No No No 2018 —
Katie — Female Blue Blonde No No No No Yes 2018 —
Laura — Female Green Black No No No No No 2018 —
Leo — Male Brown White No Yes No No No 2018 —
Lily — Female Green Dark brown No No No No Yes 2018 —
Liz — Female Blue White No No No Yes No 2018 —
Maria — Female Brown Dark brown No No No No Yes 1980 2018
Max Theo Male Brown Dark brown No Yes Yes No No 1980 2018
Mia — Female Brown Black No No No No No 2018 —
Mike — Male Brown Black No No No No Yes 2018 —
Nick — Male Brown Blonde No No Yes No No 2018 —
Olivia — Female Brown Highlights No No No No No 2018 —
Paul — Male Brown White No No No Yes No 1980 2018
Peter — Male Blue White No No Yes No No 1980 2018 Absent from 1998–2002
Philip Max, Mario Male Brown Black Yes No No No No 1980 2018
Rachel — Female Blue Dark brown No No No Yes No 2018 —
Richard Roger Male Brown Dark brown Yes Yes No No No 1980 2018
Robert — Male Blue Dark brown No No Yes No No 1980 1999
Sally Sophie Female Brown Black No No No No No 1999 2018
Sam Charles Male Brown White No No No Yes No 1980 —
Sofia — Female Green Dark brown No No No No No 2018 —
Susan — Female Brown White No No No No No 1980 1998
Tom Albert, Daniel Male Blue Black No No No Yes No 1980 2018
Victor — Male Brown White No No No No No 1999 2018

References

  1. ^ Coster, Theo (March 12, 2013). We All Wore Stars: Memories of Anne Frank from Her Classmates. St. Martin's Publishing Group. p. 3. ISBN 9780230342125. Retrieved 15 January 2024.
  2. ^ "Guess Who?". Metacritic.
  3. ^ "Guess Who? Retrospective". www.toy-tma.com. Archived from the original on 2018-05-26. Retrieved 2018-05-26.
  4. ^ a b Optimal Strategy in "Guess Who?": Beyond Binary Search by Mihai Nica.
  5. ^ Allan, Patrick (20 November 2015). "Almost Always Win the Game Guess Who With This Math-Based Strategy". Lifehacker. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
  6. ^ "Using the Guess Who? Board game to encourage speech-language development".
  7. ^ https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-t-11758-guess-who-game [bare URL]
  8. ^ "Guess Who? Oral Language Game".
  9. ^ a b Hern, Alex (16 November 2012). "Hasbro: Being a boy is normal, being a girl is a "characteristic"". www.newstatesman.com. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  10. ^ a b Sherwin, Adam (17 November 2012). "Guess Who's sexist? Classic board game's gender bias leaves six-year-old fuming". The Independent. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  11. ^ "Jennifer O'Connell, Mom, And 6-Year-Old Daughter Ask Hasbro About Gender Inequality In 'Guess Who?'". The Huffington Post. 21 November 2012.
  12. ^ Vitto, Laura (3 July 2013). "5 Depressing Facts About Your Favorite Childhood Games". Mashable.
  13. ^ White, Peter (April 19, 2021). "'Guess Who?': Unscripted Adaptation Of Board Game In The Works At NBC From Endemol Shine & eOne". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
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