3 Of a Kind
- Designer: Tim Eisner
- Publisher: Weird City Games
- Players: 2-8
- Age: 10+
- Time: 25 minutes
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
What is the scariest zoo animal?
The happiest item in a junk drawer?
The most dangerous fruit?
3 of a Kind is a competitive party game of thinking alike, where players try to write matching answers to wild questions. Each round, players select a Category and 3 different Adjectives. Each player writes one answer for each Adjective in the selected Category. The more players who write the same answer as you, the more points you get! 3 of a Kind plays with 2-8 players and offers near infinite variations of Adjective/Category combos to tickle your brain. Each game is played over 6 rounds and lasts 20-30 minutes.
Each player gets their own answer sheet and a marker. The two decks (adjectives and categories) are shuffled. Someone is chosen to be the first Dealer. The Dealer draws 2 Category cards, reads them and chooses one to play this round. The chosen card is read aloud and placed face up on the table for everyone to read. The Dealer then deals 2 Adjective cards to the next 3 players around the table, and each simultaneously chooses one and places it face up on the table underneath the category to form a column of four cards.
Now, all players write one answer for each combination of category/adjective (in the same order as they appear on the table). You cannot write the same answer for multiple questions in a round. You may write multiple words (i.e. a phrase) as an answer. You may repeat words in the Adjective or Category.
The player who chose each card starts off by announcing their answer. If other people had the same answer, all those players score points for the total number of players who gave the same answer. The rules say to be generous in deciding what matches; the table can vote if there are any edge cases. Continue around the table until all players have had a chance to see if they matched anyone else or not. Continue this process for the other two adjectives. If there is an adjective which did not have a match, the player who chose the adjective gets to pick any other player whose answer had the best “style” and that player scores a single point.
The Dealer passes one place clockwise and the whole thing is repeated. Play a total of six rounds. The player with the most points after six rounds wins.
My thoughts on the game
3 of a Kind takes on a tried and true party game trope – match the answers of the other players. While the mechanics of all these games are similar, the differentiator (in my eyes) is the quality of the questions. Here, the game gives you some interesting combinations of things to consider.
At every step of the way, the players have a role in choosing both the categories and the adjectives, so it’s rare for there to be a dud of a combination. When you’re one of the players choosing a card, you should definitely leverage this action to choose things that you think that you’ll be able to match with.
The game provides everyone with their own mini-scoreboard, and while it is convenient, some people have found it to be a tad bit small. As everyone also keeps their own score, if you care about being competitive, you’ll have to have people call out their scores periodically. For me, that’s less of an issue as this is one of those games that, for me at least, is more about the playing and less about the winning. A month from now, I won’t remember who won or lost the game, but I’ll remember someone’s crazy answer for the most obnoxious pizza topping….
The answer prompts run the gamut, and we have ended up with some really fun combinations as well as a few that were… questionable; but in the end, we only have ourselves to blame as we’re picking both the categories and adjectives! I don’t know if any of these matching word games do enough to stand out from the others, but if you don’t already have one, this is a fine one to have and play.
Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers
- I love it!
- I like it. Dale Y
- Neutral. John P, Mark Jackson
- Not for me…
