I've never played the board version of SCRUPLES, but it is not difficult to understand why it has enjoyed great popularity. Any game which calls into question the basic scruples and morality of the players is bound to be a hit; and if you add to that the strategy of character assessment - predicting what a particular player will do about a particular dilemma - you have the stuff of which wild success is made.
Because I haven't played the board version, it is difficult to comment on the translation to computer. Since the game deals with cards and since the computer deals the cards and keeps the scores for each round, that is bound to be an improvement.
Although three to eight people can play the game, clustering even the minimum number around a thirteen-inch monitor screen can be difficult. Our suggestion for play is that one person be put in charge of the joystick and that he/she be responsible for indicating the voiced choices of the other players.
While the minimum number of players is three, two of these can be controlled by the computer, making of SCRUPLES a game that can be played by a single human. On the other hand, a mixture of human and computer players can be interesting if only for the reason that humans can band together and gang up on the computer.
This is possible because it is not enough to simply answer a question on a moral dilemma: your answer must also be able to stand up to the challenges issued by other players. When such a challenge occurs, the players then vote on whether they side with the current player or his challenger.
In play, you begin with a set of question cards and a single answer card, which will be "Yes", "No" or "Depends." The idea of the game - and in fact the key strategy of the game - is to ask a question of someone who will give the answer on your answer card. To do this, you'll have to weigh what you know of a person in order to predict his/her response in a given dilemma. If you're successful in your choice and the answers match, you are allowed to pass a card to another player. The first player to run out of cards is the winner.
Then, there is that card or cards you passed. You'll want to consider the dilemmas carefully before passing them on, for the fact that they are now in the hands of another player means they'll probably come back to haunt you. So, a strategy tip: If the situation is one you'd rather not be made to confront, hold onto that card and make some other player confront it.
The dilemmas themselves are the key to the fun of the game, for they probe your honesty, your principals, personal and professional integrity, trust, humanity and more. At the beginning of the game, the human players will be asked to rate themselves in this area by manipulating bars on a bargraph. Score yourself high in honesty, low in busy-bodiness, and hope no one finds you out.
Human opponents should judge one another not by the information put into the graph, but by how they think the current target will react in a given situation. The graph is our idealization of self; reality is determined by what we say and do, and during the game the innards of your computer are keeping track of your responses to various dilemmas.
At the end of the game, when a winner has been declared, the graphs of the human players are paraded for all to see. They appear as you built them, ideal to a fault, and then change to reflect the weight of your responses. It would seem the real winner is the one who knows himself so well that there is little or no change in the graph but if you want to play that way you'll have to make it a house rule.
SCRUPLES is completely controlled by joystick, which will make things easier if you have multiple human players. Each of the three possible answers has four qualifiers from which you can choose, making it possible to include shades of grey in the choices. As an example, would you tell a neighbor his daughter throws wild parties when he is away ? One good answer is that it would depend on whether you thought he even cared.
Although it is by no means an "adults only" game, SCRUPLES does have some dilemmas dealing with infidelity and faithfulness. You may want to rate it PG, depending upon the age of your children and, of course, depending on your own scruples.
On the other hand, playing the game with children may be a very good way to open dialogues on subjects otherwise never brought into the open, thus providing the parent with an opportunity to impart some moral guidance while explaining his reasoning for a particular response.
In being fun and in having the potential to teach good values, SCRUPLES is a game well worth having.
