Chaos & Confetti

Anomia is a quick party game which tests players’ mental reflexes while giving them an opportunity to pull forth all the random tidbits of information tucked away in their minds.

Players will race to shout out answers in a game where your turn can pop up at any moment. A deck of random categories will require players to see how quickly they can come up with answers. It’ll take a quick mind and mouth to pull out victory.

Player Count: 3 – 6

Ages: 10+

Playtime: 10 – 20 minutes

GAME PLAY:

Anomia is an easy game to learn and jump into immediately.  Players will choose a deck of Anomia cards.  The deck will be shuffled and placed in the center of the table, within arms’ reach of all players.  Set up complete!

Going clockwise, one at a time, players will flip a card face up from the deck.  Each card will have a category and a symbol on it.  Flipped over cards will stay in front of players, being stacked on top of each other with every new card.  Card flipping continues until a player reveals a symbol that matches a revealed card already in front of another player.  Then, the mental and vocal race begins!

The players with the matching symbols need to name an example of the category on the other player’s card.  Whoever correctly gives an example of their opponent’s card topic first wins their opponent’s card, and sets it aside as a point.  Then, card flipping continues, unless…

Sometimes the claiming of an opponents’ card reveals another card beneath it with a symbol which may now match someone else’s card. A new duel of categories begins. This is called a cascade and sometimes a cascade of several duels may trigger one after the other.

The game continues around and around, as players stay on their toes, always at the ready to shout out answers.  Adding additional twists are wild cards, which allow specific non-matching symbols to suddenly count as matches as well.  There are also category-less cards which results in both players needing to name an answer from the one revealed category.  

Anomia continues until the final card of the deck is flipped and any final matches are resolved.  Finally, players count up their claimed cards to get their point total.  Highest score wins!

OUR THOUGHTS:

Anomia has regularly hit our gaming table for close to a decade, with several friends still requesting it on game nights. Its quick teachability and ease of play makes it perfect to fit small windows of time with a single round, while also being fun enough to play multiple rounds in a single sitting.

The game is accessible to pretty much any player, since they’ll be pulling from common knowledge, giving examples from categories that range from books to celebrities to sports teams to weather patterns. The categories are doable for most players, but the trick is getting your brain to work quick enough. This makes the game enjoyable for players of all skill levels and ages because the fun is in testing your own mental reflexes and attentiveness.  Admittedly, the fun and humor also comes from the silliness of wrong answers, brain farts, and shouting of answers.

Players should be able to get a lot of mileage out of the base decks, but for those who really enjoy Anomia there are several additional decks available such as their larger decked party edition, pop culture expansion, and decks built for kids and for others made for adults only.  

Anomia has never failed to deliver a good time and leave smiles on faces wherever we’ve pulled it out to play. 

FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS:

Anomia is a fantastic party game that will have no problem making it to the gaming table.  It’s quick to learn and easy to play.  Players will enjoy the challenge of trying to win and the hilarity of each others’ brain freezes and wildly wrong answers.  While one pack of Anomia decks should be plenty for some fun game nights, there are additional sets available to add more variety and fun.  We give this small party game a big thumbs up!

Disclaimer: we bought all three games of Anomia with our own money. This post is not sponsored.