You’ve received an invitation to a party. Great! Dust off that banana costume, and off you go! Only you misjudged the dress code… this is a political party… Welcome to the fun of the Wrong Party!
Wrong Party is a 2-5 player card game from Unstable Games, suitable for all the family.
Set Up - I hope you brought pizza!
Each player chooses a coloured party hat to represent them on the scoreboard, starting at 0. The scoreboard is laid out for all to access, either in the centre of the gaming space or to the side. This isn’t needed again until the end of each round.
Next split the cards into their two decks, black backed cards and colourful backed cards, and give them a decent shuffle. The black backed cards are your Party Guests, whereas the colourful backed cards are your Party Themes.
Per Wrong Party round, you will flip a Party Theme card once at the start. This is the event your invited party guests will attend. So how do you procure a guest list?
Each player receives 6 cards dealt from the Party Guest deck. These are for you to know, so keep them hidden from your opponents!
Playing the Rounds
Each Wrong Party round plays the same. Choose one card to keep as an invited guest and one to ban. Lay your invited party guest face down in front of you starting on the left and your uninvited guest in a pile on the right, face up. The banned guests act as a way of stopping your opponents from gaining base high scoring cards, or they may still be of use to you. I’ll discuss this later.
After everyone has finished inviting 1 guest and 1 banned guest, give your hand to the player on your left and grab your new hand from the player on your right. Draw a new card to add to your hand.
Repeat these steps until all cards in hands have been played or banned. Now it is time to reveal who is in your party! This is done going around each player, showing one card at a time, starting left to right, until all 5 guests have been revealed.
One more thing. Once you have played a card face down, you are not allowed to look at it until the end of round! So remember your colours and any effect cards played to know what your strategy for victory is.
Score up and move your party hat to the number of points you achieved. Now deal out another 6 cards and play 2 more rounds! The player with the highest score at the end of 3 rounds on the scoreboard is declared party planner of the century! Or winner of the game, if you’d prefer.
Scoring
There are multiple ways to gain points at rounds end. Firstly, the large number in the bottom left corner of the card is its base points. Add these together.
Secondly, check the Party Guest card likes and dislikes. If any of the likes match that in the party scenario attributes, this is +1 point for each. However, if any of the guests dislikes match the party scenario attribute, these count as -1 each.
For each party guest that matches the party theme card colour in your party area, +1 point!
Now for bonus points! This can be achieved by matching colours.
- 5 extra points if you have one of each coloured party type in your party area.
- 3 extra points if there are 3 cards of matching Party Guest Cards in your party area.
- 5 extra points if there are 4 matching Party Guest Cards in your party area
- 10 extra points if there are 5 matching Party Guest cards in your party area
The Cards
Looking at the party guest cards you’ll see a super cute anthropomorphised creature art and their name (Illuminati Jeff being one of my preferred cards).
Next you’ll spot each card has one or more of 4 colours, this represents a party theme and will be used during scoring. Blue for a political party, Yellow is a family friendly party, Purple being a costume party and Red represents a raid party.
Some cards have two or four colours along the bar at the top. These cards give you the option to choose what party theme they match, however you have to make the decision on their reveal and it cannot be changed after this. This is where remembering what cards you’ve played is important as you may end up missing out on valuable points if you choose wrong.
Some cards don’t have any affiliation to the 4 colours mentioned, and are an effect card that triggers when revealed at the end of the round. There are 6 variations of these cards.
Party Planner
This card can really ruin your opponent's day! The Party Planner changes whatever colour is on your Party Theme card to any other colour of your choosing! This card shines when the cards you are being handed don’t work in the favour of the current event drawn. Having a lot of Family Friendly cards passed to you? Boom! The Party Planner can reorganise the event to be a Family Friendly event!
Influencer
This card allows you to make all your party guests like a certain attribute. Best use of this Party Guest Effect Card is to make all your party guests like an attribute on the Party Theme card. This could potentially give you 4 extra points.
Hypnotist
This Party Guest Effect card allows you to force your opponents to lose points. This card's effect changes all likes to dislikes and all dislikes to likes. If you play this early on, you can set the rest of your invites attributes to switch, whilst ruining your opponents strategy. Gaining you extra points in the process.
Last Minute Invite
I said earlier your banned pile may come into play. Well this is it! Did you have a second good card in your hand that you didn’t want your opponents playing? Ban them! Not only does this stop your opponents bagging those points, but it also gives you the opportunity to invite them as a Last Minute Invite! However this can also be used to complete the collection you were going for. Need a raid card to complete that combo? Last Minute Invite!
Garbage Collector
This guy plays very similarly to Last Minute Invite, but with a bit more flare! Potentially thwart your opponents by choosing one of their banned guest piles, select a card to add to your own party area and place the rest of the banned pile into the discard pile, whilst staring your opponent dead in the eyes. If they later reveal a Last Minute Invite card, tough! Side note, the card specifies to place the new addition face down and immediately reveal it.
Killer Clown
Some parties get sabotaged, hopefully not very often by a stabbing clown. That said, on revealing, the player who invited the killer clown chooses one party guest from each other player's party area to send into the discard pile. This can ruin collecting those extra points. Ouch!
And that should be all you need to know for starting up your game of Wrong Party!