Match My Freak

NEW

I rarely click with the “edgy” party games on the market, but figured that I would give this entry from the Exploding Kittens team a shot anyway. I was pleasantly surprised by the design, quality of components, and overall approachability of the game. Still not the genre for me, but I could definitely recommend this game to others.

Game design is a thoughtful highlight of Match My Freak. The prompts don’t go too far as a rule, and there’s a mechanic in place to allow players to skip prompts without disruption of the game or any sort of shaming. Also, game flow is solid, as most of the hard decision making happens up front in the game, and the rest plays out between players in fun, smooth rounds of gameplay. Finally, being cooperative rather than competitive creates a much more supportive environment for genuinely getting to know your fellow players.

Components are excellent quality and thoughtfully constructed without being over-designed. Cards and dry-erase markers work well, the number dial is well-crafted and works perfectly. Overall, the components let you focus on the gameplay experience without causing delays or frustrations.

These combine to make an overall enjoyable and somewhat unique play experience for fans of this genre. It didn’t really mesh with my own playstyle preferences or those of my group, but we appreciated the thoughtful design and unique spin in a somewhat crowded field.

I played this game with four college students who aren’t the main target audience for this game (very religious) and they had a blast! Though some questions were super easy because none of us were that freaky, there was still plenty of thought provoking questions that hit the spot for even the least freaky individuals. The quality of the game is great and we replayed it about 5 times. Not to hard and not too easy. Definitely harder if you have done more freaky things. Overall great thing.

Getting the downside out of the way first. Actually following the rules doesn’t leave much of a game. It’s short, several times game over with only one round in a game of 4. Not having a “win” if you matched the freak or something for being freaky hinders the potential of the game. 1 to 5 scale doesn’t add much to experience.

Now for the important part. Out of all EK games played this one truly is best played with rules you make up. Variations played: Know your freak - One freak and each player has to individually guess freaky. Penalties if you guess wrong. Final 1v1 round meter goes up/down based on guessing right/wrong. 1 freak wins, 5 player wins. Don’t be a freak - each player answers card. All cards mixed in the middle face down. Go around with player grabs a card, reads both question/answer, then V1 player guesses who is the freak. V2 everyone guesses. If player grabs their card and successfully convinces everyone to choose someone else, big points. Get your freak on - Go around in circles with bunch of cards, each trying to guess freak level(increase 1 to 10), correct keep card, no correct player keeps. End when you want, most cards win.

This game is lots of fun if you don’t follow the rules. Overall average game that gets extra bump as the variations can get spicy.

Our friends and I had a great time playing this game. The questions were a good mix to spark discussion while providing a lot of laughs. We ended up not really using the scale and just took turns reading the questions. This was very fun to play!