¡New Amici! (2004)

Overview

This game comes from Californian Products, a company that was founded in 1975 but has only recently, with Cranium, entered the toy and game market. New Amici has set as its goal to tune up people's often only limited knowledge of foreign languages, so that players can make new friends when on vacation abroad.

Up to four teams / solo players in two different nationalities take part, independent of language knowledge or age. By virtue of three difficulty levels, played in parallel, even novices can stand a chance against advanced speakers and learn the basics of the language along the way. The game works in two directions: people that normally speak German, for example, but wish to learn English can play the English-German version with English speakers who wish to learn German. Both profit from each other. But even players who all have the same mother tongue can play. The correct pronunciation of words in foreign languages is no problem, as New Amici uses a unique phonetic system that doesn't require any advance knowledge. Unlike the dictionaries, the words are spelled using 'normal' alphabet letters instead of phonetic symbols.

The goal of the game is to win cards over three rounds. This is accomplished by translating cards in both the mother tongue as well as the foreign language. Novices have to translate simple words, advanced players have to translate tougher cards. In addition to vocabulary know-how, New Amici also provides information about countries and peoples. In addition to words, sentences and idiomatic expressions, there are also cards with information about culture, business, as well as food and drink. The next rounds begins after seven cards have been won. The winner is the player who, in the finals, translates all of the played cards error-free.

The game has sold over 42,000 copies in Norway. In Germany, it is being distributed through toy stores, department stores, as well as book stores. Thus far, four versions are available for the suggested retail price of 39.90 Euros: German-English, German-French, German-Spanish, German-Italian. A German-Norweigan version is already available in Norway and should be available in Germany soon.

In The Netherlands it was also available in four versions: Dutch-English, French, Spanish and Italian. A Dutch-German version was made by Hueber Verlag GmbH & Co. KG.