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This game is very similar to the The Game of Authors. The biggest difference appears to be that the names of the missing set cards are not provided on at the bottom of each card. The game can be used to teach job names to children.
This game was designed in England and was originally published for the Great Exhibition by John Jaques & Sons. The outside of the box described the name as Happy Families while the inside of the box describes the name as Merry Families. Each quartet consists of four family members -- a father, a mother, a son, and a daughter. The fathers are Mr. Daub the Painter, Mr. Dough the Baker, Mr. Pill the Doctor, Mr. Sand the Grocer, Mr. Saw the Carpenter, Mr. Snip the Barber, Mr. Stain the Dyer, Mr. Smut the Sweep, Mr. Thread the Tailor, and Mr. Tub the Brewer.
- Too swingy
- Too obvious at times
- Snowball effect leads to large win margins
- Too primitive and clunky
- Collecting families
- Victorian era
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Memory — Players try to remember where certain cards are located.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is where I rank and review five new to me board games in order of preference.
- It's a little bit too um I say swingy, but it's a little bit too obvious at times and sometimes if you're doing really well, it's it's very easy to get like a a snowball effect going where you can keep on guessing correctly because information becomes clearer and clearer and one person tends to snowball and win the game by quite some distance.
- If I want to play a blackjack variant, then so many other games have done it to a much higher standard.
- It all boils down to what cards in your hand is a pure luck fest.
- The game gets out of its own way. It doesn't focus on mechanisms or silly little tricks. It's all about using that information to do the fun part, which is the deduction.
- The twist on this game is that the cards played in the previous round will be the scoring cards for the next round.
- So, very clever stuff.
- I just like those little nuances, those little niche rules that just make this one kind of just just pique my interest a little bit more than there would be if this game was just a simple shedding game.
- I just think this game does everything the original does, but with a bit more interest and and even more fun.
- But on the downside, the actual tile racks in this game are nowhere near as good as the original because they're just cardboard fold overs.
- So I can't praise this one enough.