You Lying Sack

Here we go again, another game where I find out how much my kids have improved at lying since the last bluffing party game we played. You Lying Sack from the Exploding Kittens team and Penn from Penn and Teller no less, is a group game with very minimal rules. What you get from the void that is left from the lack of rules is laughter, trying to read each other’s intentions and a sack full of entertaining madness.

Risk, Reward & Telling Fibs

To win, all you have to do is be the last player standing, simple enough. On the other side of that, if you ever have ten ‘bad things’ you are out of the game. ‘Bad things’ are these small foam red triangles and everyone starts with three. How do you get these ‘bad things’ I hear you cry? And how do I get rid of them? Well, by lying though your teeth I suppose or even sometimes, just sometimes, by telling the truth and making people think your being deceitful.

The main artifact in the game is the Lying Sack, a small brown sack with a big grinning face on. In this sack contains shedloads of ‘bad things and one ‘good thing’. The good thing is a bright blue plastic cuboid. When you put your hand in the sack it’s easy to tell the difference between the ‘bad things’ and the ‘good things’ due to the texture, shape and martial they are made of.

So on your turn you have to either take a number of ‘bad things’ out of the bag, which goes up each round or just take out the ‘good thing’. You must then, in clockwise order offer it to each player asking them “Would you like my hand of bad things?” If they take it they either add the ‘bad things’ from your hand to their pile or if they were lucky enough to get the ‘good thing’ then they reduce the amount of ‘bad things’ in their pile by a number decided on a die roll at the start of the round.

Lies, Lies For Tiny Eyes

What you want as the lead player is either to get the ‘good thing’ all the way back round to you, so you can get rid of your ‘bad things’ or con someone into taking loads of ‘bad things’ and trying to force them out of the game. Like I said the number of ‘bad things’ rises by one each round, creating a rising tension.Anytime someone rolls a six, on the die that decides how many ‘bad things’ you can get rid of, the amount of ‘bad things’ grabbed out of the bag is reset. All lof this is tracked on a handy little board that sits in the middle of all players.

While there is not much ‘actual’ game here, it’s the atmosphere it creates around the table, like The Resistance or games of that ilk. The small ruleset and easy to learn mechanics get out of the way of having fun with friends and calling each other lying scumbags. Awesome.

Cards, Sacks, Good & Bad Things

The amount of components in You Lying Sack is very small but what is there is very well designed and tactile. You have a die, a card for tracking round-based stats and a sack full of ‘good things’ and ‘bad things’. The game works perfectly based on the fact that the ‘good things’ and ‘bad things’ feel so contrasting to touch. One is warm, fuzzy and course and the other is cold, hard and smooth. If these components were slightly off, the game would fall apart. Luckily, they work very well and make being able to disguise what you are holding easy.

Final Thoughts

You Lying Sack is not a game I would want to play every night, however, when I do play it, it’s a great way to get people together, sharing minimal components, learning minimal rules and having a laugh. Everyone I have taught it to has thoroughly enjoyed it, even non-gamers. I did find it ran a tad long a few times but you can house-rule a shorter game easily enough.