Review: Say Anything Family Edition
I received a play-test copy of Say Anything: Family Edition from North Star Games a short while ago and we've managed to play this new edition a few times now. We also own the original Say Anything so this review will be colored a bit by our past experience with it.
Game Play
Most of my readers have probably played Apples to Apples at some point and that is the game that most will compare Say Anything to. The play sequence goes like this:
- The current player draws a card and chooses from one of the In My Opinion... questions shown on the card, reading it aloud to the other players.
- Everyone else writes an answer on a dry-erase card that they think the current player will choose and throws it down on the table.
- The current player secretly chooses what they think is the best answer.
- Everyone else then places bets on what they think the current player chose.
The big difference with Apples to Apples being that players get to write down their own answers rather than being limited to a hand of cards to choose from.
My Review
The family edition builds on the base game mechanic by including questions that will be more family friendly. With two teenage boys this isn't a big deal for our family, but it is certainly nice to have an additional set of cards available.
We enjoy the game play greatly and this is one of our go-to party games that we'll play with other friends and family (Eye to Eye probably being our all-time favorite). The ability for players to write down any answer expands the creative options for the game and leads to more laughter and fun than Apples to Apples.
My only complaint is that the game only supports 3-6 players out of the box, but should easily scale to 8-10 players. We find ourselves harvesting dry erase boards from other games (like Wits and Wagers) to support more players. I know this is the "Family Edition" so perhaps the thinking was fewer players supported would be OK, but going forward we'll just use the original game components so that we can support up to 8.