| Players: | 3-8 |
| Recommended Age: | 10+ |
| Cost: | $19.99 |
| Play Time: | 30-45 minutes |
| Our Recommended Age: | 5+ (with help) |
| Company Site: | www.rnrgames.com |
Don’t panic parents! It is just a mess of cards…not a room or anything. Guess the Mess is a fun game where you want another player to guess what room your “mess” is from. The most points wins but a fun twist is you get the same amount of points as your guesser so you WANT them to get points too! Just not as many as you…
R & R Games is known for making games that are fun for kids and adults alike and Guess the Mess has fast become one of our favorite, everyone can play, games. Recommended for ages 10+ doesn’t mean younger kids cannot play. The Diva is only 7 going on 15, I mean 8, and did great.
There is reading but with help younger kids can play no problem. Someone could tell the child what room they have and the mess cards are all pictures. Remove the 30 second timer and adjust the card selections for Room cards to be only those the younger child would know and you have an adjusted game!
The timer is a typical plastic timer, the score pad is paper and lays out how to keep score and the rest of the game is made up of cards. Square decent sized cards that were pretty well made and the picture are actual photos which is neat.
The robot and pig characters are adorable and fit with the theme of the game as well. It comes in a typical lift top lid box that is pretty sturdy and over all a well put together game. But let’s get to the fun part! How to play!
Objective:
Have the highest score at the end of 6 rounds. Simple!
Setup:
Get the Which Way cards and grab only the cards for the number of people playing. So in our case we had 3 players so we chose the ones that had 3+ on them. Put the rest away and then shuffle the ones you had out and set them aside.
One player is the MESSenger (they did it, not me hehe) for the game. Their job is to collect, shuffle, display and read out loud the Place cards when they are required. This person should take the Place cards now.
Every player gets a set of cards of one color so choose your color! They should be numbered 1 – 8. Now take the Spot cards and put them off to the side of the player area so everyone can see them and with their numbers face up and in order.
Now take the Mess cards and spread them out in the play area, face down. Make sure every player can reach them but feel free to make a mess! These should never be stacked and even when you go to put them away they will be a mess, well they should be hehe. The instructions do show you how to set up the play area.
Play:
The MESSenger deals one Place card, face down to every player. Check out your card but don’t show anyone else, except me if I am taking pictures for a blog post…Memorize it! This is where playing with littles might be a problem so make sure they have some help and if you have to select cards use the selected ones instead of a shuffled deck.
Give your Place card to the MESSenger, but they cannot look at it so no cheating! When the MESSenger has them all they puts more cards from the Place cards so there are a total of 8 all face down. If you have 8 players you obviously wouldn’t add cards.
Once again the MESSenger has a job to do! They shuffle the 8 Place cards and put one, face down, under each of the Spot cards. Now the fun part! Anyone can turn over the timer, but we let the MESSenger do it to avoid turn taking and fighting. Yell “Dig!” and at the same time all players go through the Mess card mess and find items that could be found in their Place cards room.
Once you have your mess cards (face down) someone turns over the Which Way card and sets it face up and next to the deck. Pass your Mess cards to the player based on the direction the Which Way card shows.
When you get a set of Mess cards, flip them over and start looking over them. Now the MESSenger flips over the Place cards and reads it out loud. Compare your Mess cards to the Place cards shown and choose 3 that you think could match your Mess. Now get your Number cards and put them face down in front of you. The top card will be your first guess so be careful when placing them down.
Once everyone is ready take turns showing your guesses in clockwise order. Start with a different player every time. Once all guesses are revealed whoever has the Mess that is being Guessed answers whether it is correct or not. You get points immediately if you are correct.
If your first guess is correct you get 3 points, if it is your second guess that is correct you get 2 points and 1 point if it is your last guess that is correct. If it is none of those you get no points. The person who created the mess gets the same points as the Guesser. Make sure everyone has the correct points at the end of each round.
Once you are done scoring points, make a Mess again with the Mess cards and put the used Place cards back in the box.
Winning:
After round 6 add up all the rounds worth of scores and whoever has the highest score wins! If there is a tie then a round is played with all tied players only and if there is STILL a tie they all win! Woo hoo! Or you can roll a die or paper, rock scissors it.
So Guess the Mess! is super fun for adults as well as kids. In fact it is kind of challenging for adults because we HAVE to use the timer and we play a few more rounds than 6. Sometimes we play til someone has a certain number of points too hehe.
Perfect for Family Game Nights, Kid Game Nights, parties, or for the fun of the game! We also use it in our homeschool lessons. I mean aside from math it does help with organizing groups of things right? See? Educational!
Show us your Guessed Mess! @MyGeeklings #GuessTheMess @RnRGames
