Party games are not in short supply. In fact, a check on Board Game Geek as of writing this review, shows there are 15,710 party games for people to enjoy. When you think about it, if you are making a party game and want it to be successful, you had better make something that sticks out.
So how does Moral conflict (family edition) stand up in a very crowded market?
What is Moral Conflict (family edition)?
The game is all about who is more or least likely to do something. Are you well behaved or mischievous? The aim is not to be the most voted in the group.
As the title suggests, this is the family edition of the game, so aimed at families with young children… so no crass or controversial questions will be found here.
What do you get in the box?
The box comes with minimal components. A set of paddles and pens, enough for each player and a deck of cards.
The cards are average quality, and are plainly designed. This is not a criticism, they are just functional and don’t really need to be anything more. There are around 100 in total, so plenty to get through, although the speed of play will mean you will soon be through them all if you play multiple games.
The boards are dry wipe boards and on the playthroughs we had, wiped clean easily enough which is a win. Thankfully, the speed of a round will mean ink will never stay on them long enough to be a real issue.
The pens are fairly generic dry wipe pens with erasers on the lids. This is quite handy, given that they are the kind you can easily pick up from a stationers or even some supermarkets, so if you do ever need to replace them it shouldn’t be too difficult.
Finally, the instructions manual… well, less a manual than a very small folded leaflet. The rules are so simple and easy that it will literally take less than a minute to read and digest. So you won’t really need to do much pre-game prep to understand the rules, and can easily teach it within seconds.
Who is most likely to get the rules right!
Speaking of rules… They are VERY simple.
A card is drawn and read out. Everyone then writes the name of who they think most or least likely meets what the card asks – in your opinion.
Once everyone has decided, you all share your answers and the person with the most votes takes the card.
Once a player has 5 cards, the game ends and whoever has the least amount of cards will win.
And that’s it… you can see why they did not need a huge manual for this game.
Who is most likely to get the most out of the game?
There is not a lot to say about this game. If you are not a fan of party games to start, you probably won’t enjoy this one that much either. If you are a fan of party games, you may be intrigued enough to punt on it. If you are looking for something with your adult friends, and like party games that may be a little risky in content, this will not be for you. This game plays it safe… it is the family edition after all and better suited to game nights that involve children.
This comes to one of the issues we found with this game… because they were clearly trying to ensure safety for younger audiences, many of the cards we came across didn’t feel like Moral Conflicts and more just random questions. Questions such as who will be more like to eat their dinner the fastest? Who is most likely to cut their own hair? Who is more likely to take the longest in the bathroom? Having not played the original (non-censored family edition), we can’t judge if the original lacks its names theme in the game, but this one does seem to. But again, this is not aimed at adult game nights, kids will probably just giggle and enjoy voting.
This is not a game that will set the world aflame, neither original, innovative or particularly memorable in anyway, but it isn’t trying to be. It is trying to be a simple quick family game and there it succeeds. The speed of play means you will probably, start to finish (including set up and reading/explaining the rules) not even need anymore than around 20 minutes to play. This means it fits in an ideal space for those youngsters with short attention spans as well as quick fillers. So if that is what you are looking for, this might be for you.
About the author:
We are Peaches and Meeples, busy professionals who love to chill out to fun table top games. We love board games, card games, miniatures games, competitive or co-operative. Put some dice in our hands and we are in our happy place.
We are also proud guinea pig parents to two lovely fluffballs of joy.
