Funny Friends for four from Friday

As wedding gifts, several of our thoughtful friends showered Kristin and I with store credit at Critical Hit Games. I tried to pick out some games that we could play together, or that both of our groups of friends might enjoy. For the first instalment, I grabbed one of the Kosmos two-players: Odin's Ravens, as well as the new (in English) Friedemann Friese game Funny Friends, which I thought her circle of friends would get a kick out of. Unfortunatley, Kristin is way too busy finishing her dissertation right now, so the games will have to wait a couple weeks for her.

In the meantime, I have to kill some hours while she's writing. To that end, I rang up Dan on Friday night, and found that he, Drew, and Tim were up for some gaming. I took three games over: Tikal, Nexus Ops, and Funny Friends, and, after looking the box over, FF was the choice.

I had punched and sorted the game bits, but had not really gone over the rules. The tokens and cards are all high quality, with the player boards and cards being quite humorous. The game rules are just mildly confusing. Primarily, taking current friends, and getting new ones, to/as a result of life events took some discussion. Once we'd gone through everything, we got to playing pretty quick.

Drew and Tim took to the game pretty well, and the three of us were having fun making up stories about the interacions between our "characters." Dan was a little distracted, seemingly more interested in playing with his dog. One point where this game has a little drawback is player downtime. If someone passes out of a round early, they really might not have much to do but watch for a few minutes. On the other hand, since the cards and their interactions prompt some funny comments and stories (sort of like Illuminati but more so), it can be fun just to be involved. On the other hand, if your not really into the mood of the game, this downtime could just push you further away.

I've generally found that in our first plays of auction games, we drastically undervalue and undercompete on the auction items. That was certainly the case here, as far too many life events went for zero. Later in the game, we started to make probing bids to make people pay, but it seemed too late to really have an effect. We also underused our "call" tokens, with, I think, only one of them being utilized during this first play.

It was a interesting the related life events that seem to form a sort of personality profile of your persona while he tries to fulfill his life goals. I deviated only slightly from a path of debauchery: I had many friends, went to lots of parties, took a school trip, a trip to Amsterdam, went to Carnival, etc.. I got up to three life goals total, with another ready to play, when Drew managed to lay down his fifth and win the game, in the middle of maybe the third or fourth turn, I think.

Overall, the game was well received, even if Dan wasn't really in the mood for it. At first glance, it really looks like a party game, but it's got some "gamer" qualities tucked away in good spots. I think it will hold up and grow as a game, and hopefully, as the cards begin to grow a little familiar, we'll see the expansions that this box certainly seems ripe for.

This is certainly the most risque game in my collection. If the game has been "watered-down," from the German edition, as some have suggested it would be... well, I'm looking forward to seeing that version! This is a game that will certainly provide laughs for mature gamers, whether they're serious Euro gamers, party gamers, or RPG/Gamer-gamers who're just looking for a quick, easy evening of fun. Looking forward to more plays.

GG, GL