Think You Know Emotions?
Mr Face is a simple and quick pick-up-and-play game for 3-6 players, and the recommended age of 9 and above sits fairly accurate with me as there’s some reading involved that younger readers may struggle with. I feel Mr Face provides some family-friendly fun, but can quickly transform itself into a chill-out games night warm-up or a party game for those of you who like a glass of wine or a beer or two (whilst I don’t drink, I can see it being an enormous amount of fun to play when you’re a bit tipsy!). So let’s take a closer look at Mr Face.
Game Unboxing and Setup
The box itself for Mr Face is small and compact making it portable and able to slot into basically any space on your shelf of games. Inside is a simple set of instructions, a deck of square cards, and the components to make your faces with. There’s also some player markers.
Setup takes just a minute of your time. You’ll want to give the cards a shuffle and pop out the pieces you’ll be creating with, then build the 4-piece empty face in the centre of the table for everyone to see and use. Then deal each player 6 cards, keeping the text face down, only to be seen by the person who receives them, and the rest of the cards nearby. Place all the face pieces close by to the centre, and you’re ready to play Mr Face.
Gameplay Overview
Players decide on someone to begin. That person will draw a card from the pile and they have to make a face out of the available pieces that matches the text on that card. These cards may be simple emotional words or phrases such as “oops” or “somebody help!!”, or some more complex ideas like “That’s enough for today, I’m off to bed”. Once they make their face, players select a card from their hand that they think matches the expression and hands it to the first person who mixes them up with their own and lays them out, and then, one by one, players vote for which they think is the correct answer, scoring points if they’re correct.
We had fun discovering a range of funny phrases to create faces for and had a giggle trying to decipher each other’s faces. We’ve played a few times as a three with our 9 year old son, and a few times with other people playing games with 5 and 6 players too. Play doesn’t really change with more or less people, and I think you could add additional people if you wanted to up to around 10 players to make things more interesting, you’d just need to make some custom player markers (paper and a pen!).
The time it takes for each person to make a face, and others to cast their votes, is quite short, so you could easily play a few rounds if you wanted to or keep it short with just one go each at creating your emotional responses. This makes Mr Face good fun as an opener to a games night (or a closing game after a few drinks!) as well as a bit of family fun after dinner, and it’s compact size means it’s travel friendly too.
Not feeling the face-making? Pieces not giving you what you need for your card? You can also make your face using your own face, creating an expression and taking a selfie for the other players to try and guess. We haven’t played this way as we think it takes the fun out of the creating, but it would change up the way you play and may be easier for younger players.
Final Thoughts
My own thoughts on Mr Face are: I love it’s portability, it’s simplicity, and the general idea as a whole, but I think the scoring system could be improved. We’ve introduced a house rule that players receive points when other players vote for their card (thinking it’s the correct answer) rather than just scoring when they guess the correct answer; If you’ve ever played games like Balderdash or Flummoxed you’ll know what I mean. There’s not a huge amount of player interaction, but watching your opponent try to create something with a selection of shapes is entertaining enough not to need the interaction.
My 9 year old’s thoughts about Mr Face: It’s good because you don’t have to make a face with the parts you can do it with your actual face and take a picture. I like that you don’t choose a card from your hand to make a face of and that you have to do a random one because that’s fair and more funny. If you play with just 3 people you might have to do a few rounds to score more points.
My husband’s thoughts: I think Mr Face is a quick to play game which requires some skills in interpretation. It helps if you know the people you’re playing with well because you’re familiar with how they interpret emotions and might be able to work out easier what they were trying to represent with their creation. It’s so easy to learn, and to teach how to play.
About the Author:
My name is Charlotte and I’m a married mum of two boys, one with special needs, and one who is turning into a gamer like me. I love board and video games and have been playing games since before I can remember. I grew up with some traditional and unusual games and Mr Face is a game my children will be able to grow up having fun playing.
