My Favourite Things

• Designer: Nilgiri
• Publisher: play for keeps
• Players: 3-6
• Age: 14+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

My Favourite Things, first released as 曖昧フェイバリットシングス (Eye My Favorite Things), is a trick-taking party game in which you don’t know the value of your cards, and instead, you get to know your fellow players.

In the game, you present your neighbors with a category and ask them to write their five favorite things (and one least favorite thing) in that category on their cards. You then use these cards to play a trick-taking game with all other players, with none of you knowing the true value of any card played until the end of each trick. Your neighbor’s preference rank is the card’s strength. Card 1 is highest and 0 is lowest, but if 1 and 0 appear in the same trick, 0 wins.

Because you are playing with someone else’s favorite things, each trick provokes unique insights into your fellow players and sparks interesting conversations. Does Paul like Power Rangers more than Anthony likes Banana Milkshake or Archie likes Italian Disco? These are the deductions and judgement calls you’ll need to make in My Favourite Things.

All of the cards are paired in sleeves – each ranking card is placed in a sleeve with a writing card of matching color placed on top of it.  Each player chooses a color in setup and takes all the sleeves of their colored cards.  The game will be played over two rounds – each with phases of preparation, play and then cleanup.

In the Preparation phase, you take your category card and write some sort of category on it.  Try to pick something broad enough that your neighbor can come up with 5 good answers.  Really come up with something that the other person can make a top 5 list out of.  Pass the category card and your sleeved cards to your left hand neighbor.

Now, all players slide up the writing cards on each sleeve so they can see the number value on the ranking card below – there are numbers 1-5 as well as a broken-hearted symbol on the sixth card.  Looking at the category given to you, write down your 5 favorite things in that category, with the most favorite thing on the #1 set of cards.  On the broken hearted card, write down your least favorite thing in the category. You’ll want to write your answers on the top half of the writing card, and then slide the card back down to obscure the number.  Once all six cards have answers on them (and their values are hidden), shuffle the cards and hand them back to the player that gave them to you.

In the card play phase, each player first reads out their category and the answers they got back from their neighbor.  Then, you’ll play a trick taking game consisting of 5 tricks. Starting with the player with the start player marker, each player plays one of their cards into the trick, reading aloud what is on their card.  When all players have played, each player slides their writing card up to show the actual value of the card.

The lowest numbered card wins the trick (the card closest to 1).  However, if a 1 card has been played, it can be defeated by the broken hearted card.   If there is a tie for the winning card, the one which was played earlier breaks the ties.  The player who wins the trick takes a heart token from the supply.  All of the played cards are placed aside so that the word and card value can be seen.   Pass the first player marker to the left and repeat the process until five tricks have been played.

At the end of the first round, erase all the cards.  Repeat the process for a second round.  At the end of the second round, the player with the most heart tokens wins the game.  There is no tiebreaker.  

My thoughts on the game

My Favourite Things is an interesting trick taking game in that you don’t always know the values of the cards that you are playing; and, you’re relying upon your knowledge of your neighbor’s likes/dislikes to try to guess at those values.

The magic in the game is learning what your friends like and dislike; sometimes the answers can be quite surprising.  Of course, to get the best response, you’ll have to develop some skill in posing the right questions for your categories.  If you are too broad, it might be hard for you to discern your neighbor’s ranking of things (countries).  If you are too narrow, there might not be enough difference in the answers for you to work with (favorite shade of blue).  That being said, I’ve had plenty of hilarious answers to super specific questions – “Games you hate to see being played at a game convention after midnight”.

For people that struggle with coming up with topics, the back cover of the rules is helpful as it provides a nice list of common topics.  Players don’t necessarily have to use any of them, but I think it provides a really nice set of concrete examples.

In the trick-taking phase, you’re at first relying upon your knowledge of the other people.  It’s important to remember that earlier in turn order breaks ties as well.  After a few tricks, you can also add in a bit of logic into your strategy as you can see which cards have already been played by other players, and this will help you narrow down their possible card values as well.

The components are nice, and i like the fact they have provided a few extra sleeves to make sure that you have enough.  I will note that the markers do smudge a bit onto the insides of the sleeves, so you still have to be fairly careful when shuffling them – definitely try to use a gentle touch!

So, the rules state that the winner of the game is the player with the most hearts at the end; but I honestly feel like this is more of an experience game – and I am just happy to play along, gaining my enjoyment out of hearing the answers (and often laughing about them) as well as just some personal satisfaction when I’m able to correctly peg an answer to its ranking.  The actual winning/losing based on the score always feels secondary to me.

This is definitely a fun little party game, and one that I think works best if players either know everyone else well OR are relative strangers – it is admittely fragile for me in that sense.  But, regardless of previous familiarity, it’s still a fun experience to play through and a great way to learn more about the other players around the table.  With the right group (and the right categories) – this is a hoot!  

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Dan B. (1 play): I like many trick-taking games and I like many party games… but I am not sure that this combination of the two works for me. However, having only played it once (and not entirely correctly, I think) it’s hard to be sure. I’d play it again. In any case I admire the attempt to combine these two things.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Jim B.  Dale
• Neutral.
• Not for me…