Story Pieces Review

"Tell me story!" says the son. "No, let's write a story!" replies the mom.

"It all started on the way to school..." This was the first sentence in a story titled "Prison." That's all I had to work with. My job was to come up with the next sentence. Then, the turn would pass to the next person in our little trio. That person would not be able to see the first sentence; she would only see my sentence and the title. After adding her sentence, it would pass back to the creator, who could read hers, but not mine. And so on, until we completed the nine sentences of our collaborative story. Once finished, the entire story was revealed to all three of us. And it was quite hilarious!

Story Pieces is a little "Mad-Libby," for those who enjoy that type of game. Players work together to create a funny story without being privy to all the juicy details until the big reveal. It's a simple, quick game that challenges a player's creativity and hopefully inspires a full-bodied use of the English language. An app like this would be quite fun in the classroom; many teachers play the paper and pencil version already.

In order to begin playing Story Pieces (Note: This app is playable on iOS7 and above only), players must sign-in using Facebook or email. They can then start a game by inviting friends or instigating a random game. This, unfortunately, was a no-go for me. The app never found me any random opponents. But I did have a rollicking good time playing with the family during our Christmas-time visit. The more people who play, the longer the story - every player gets three turns - and the longer the story, the funnier it gets! If the story is deemed worthy, players can share it via message, mail, Twitter, or Facebook.

Nothing at all to pick on here, except the random game creator not working. This is a great little game to pull out at a family get-together, in line at Disneyland with the kids, in L.A. traffic on the way to Grandma's, and so on. Trust me, giggles will ensue! And parents may have a hard time prying it out of your child's hand. Just a warning.