Eye My Favorite Things (2nd Version) 曖昧フェイバリットシンクス（第二版）

I first caught sight of this game on a Taiwanese board game blog, and was immediately intrigued by the ingenious gaming mechanism -- trick-taking combined with ice-breaking! The simple game rules make the game perfect for warm up, as well as filler between heavier games.

Surume Days (するめデイズ) has busted its budget and gone all out on visual appeal. Look at the cute miniature postal box that serves as the starting player marker. Look at the stamps from the Netherlands that serves as the point tokens. Surume Days only hand-made very few copies of the game every time, and sold the game exclusively on Games Market.

I have been eyeing on this game ever since it was first published in late 2015, but I never had any luck buying it from outside Japan. In the end, I pay for my flight tickets to join GM to secure myself a copy. The second version of the game is first available in the Spring GM 2018, but is immediately sold out in the first two hours on the first day...

Enough on the acquisition story...

In this game, each player needs to guess the ranking of the favorite items in his hands and pitch against all other players' answers. But be careful -- if one player plays the most favorite card (Rank "1"), the disliked card (Rank "0") trumps all!
How well do you think you know your friends? Let's put your friendship to the test with this light weight delight of a game!

Eye My Favorite Things
(3-6 players, ~30 minutes)

Contents:
- 6 marker pens
- one eraser

- 6 scoring boards, one of each color
- 6 sets of ranking cards for each color, with 6 card decks in each set
(one deck includes a writing card + a rank card of 0,1,2,3,4,5 + card sleeve)

- Starting Player Marker
- Score token

Objectives of the game
In this game, players receive other players' written answers on "top five favorite things + one thing not liked (joker)," which would become the players' playing hand. Players need to guess on the ranking of these answers, and play the cards in an attempt to outbid the other players. The player will the highest score at the end of the game wins the game.

Gameplay
There are two phases in this game -- (A) the card building phase and (B) the card playing phase.
The two phases (for each player) together form one round, and one game consists of two rounds.

(A) Card Building Phase (First Round)

• Choose one color of choice, and receive the scoring card and the ranking card set of that color.
• Determine the starting player, and place the Starting Player Marker in front of him.
• Think of one question for the player on the right. (It is important to choose a good theme, preferably one that the target player is interested or knowledgeable in.) Write the theme on the scoring card, and hand all the cards (the scoring card and the ranking card set) to the player on the right.
  Some sample questions provided in the game manual:
• Favorite b-grade movies;
• Things you recently bought;
• Favorite board games;
• Fun travel destinations;
• Favorite scent;
• Games in the old days;
• Favorite killer move;
• Things you look forward to now;
• Favorite hair style;
• Your fetishes;
• Favorite musicians;
• Toys you owned before;
• Things you hold dear to yourself.

• Pull out the writing cards from all the card sleeves, and write five favorite items and one disliked item on the writing cards based on the theme received, one item per card. Then put the cards back into the sleeves according to the items' ranking -- 1 being the most favorite, 5 being the least favorite, and 0 being the disliked. Make sure the writing cards cover the numbers on the ranking cards.
• Write your name at the bottom of the scoring card. Shuffle all six ranking card decks, put the scoring card on top, and hand all cards back to the player on the left. (In other words, the scoring card should bear the name of the player answering the theme, not the player creating the theme.)

(B) Card Playing Phase (First Round)

• Put all the cards faced up in front of you, for all players' view.
• Starting from the starting player and rotating clockwise, each player reads out the answers on all six ranking card decks. If there is anything unclear about the answer, all players can use this opportunity to ask the answer provider.
• After all players have presented their answers, starting from the starting player and rotating clockwise, each player choose one ranking card deck and play it out.
• When all players have choose the ranking card deck to play, on a count of three, all players reveal the ranking card by pulling it from the sleeve.
• The winning player is determined by the following rules:
• Lower ranking number beats higher ranking number
• If any player plays a "1", then "0" (joker) wins
• If multiple cards of the same strength are played, the player closest to the starting player wins.
• For example:
• "1" "2" "4" "5" --> "1" wins
• "1" "3" "5" "0" --> "0" wins
• "2" "3" "4" "0" --> "2" wins
• "3" (starting player) "3" "3" "4" --> starting player wins
• "2" (starting player) "1" "1" "3" --> the next player clockwise from the starting player wins
• The winner puts one score token onto the scoring card
• Return all cards in front of the player, with the ranking card visible. Take some time to discuss why the ranking is as so.
• Hand the starting player token to the player on the left, and restart the phases with the new player as the starting player.
• Repeat as many times as the number of players, and the first round ends.

Second Round

• For the second round, the theme is determined by the player on the left. Other rules are the same as in the first round.
• After the second round has ended, the player with the most score tokens win the game.
• Feel free to spend more time discussing why the ranking is as so!