Take turns playing detective in this entertaining party game where one player attempts to identify the real, often surprising true answer to a question, whilst the rest have fun inventing outlandish yet potentially plausible fake answers.
Big Potato’s “Sounds Fishy” is essentially a much pacier reimagining of the superb 35+ year old boardgame classic – Balderdash – but it does away with the board and introduces a push your luck scoring mechanic to the deduction. Played across multiple rounds with each player taking turns to be a guesser with the aim being to amass the most points in one or two player circuits of the table.a pacier re-envisioning
Pick a fish
Each non-guesser is handed a face down fish token that identifies them as either a Red Herring or a True Blue Kipper.
Pose a question
The guesser takes a question card, holds it up and reads it out to the group. On the reverse is printed the correct answer for all to see.
once I caught a fish alive
The remaining players take turns to publicly answer the question. All but one are completely invented (Red Herrings) with only the True Blue Kipper providing the correct answer printed on the back of the card.
The guesser then attempts to eliminate the fibs one-by-one, scoring one point for each identified Red Herring in the hope of uncovering (flipping) the True Blue Kipper last to maximise their points.
something fishy this way swims
The guesser can cease their sleuthing at any time to bank the accumulated points but if they flip over the True Blue Kipper before all the Red Herrings have been identified they score nothing.
Red Herring players only score if they remain unflipped, and the True Blue Kipper player only scores if they get flipped (the true answer proving to be unbelievable to the Guesser).
house rule
Players may wish to implement a house rule allowing players to tweak the language of some of the answers so it’s less easily identifiable as the correct answer.
Otherwise it can become particularly evident who the True Blue Kipper is when your 8 year old starts spouting unfamiliar phrases or mispronounces their answer, but it’s a seriously minor point and happens very infrequently.
The publisher recommended age is 10+ which I think for once is probably spot on. Younger players may struggle on the time pressured creativity which may blight the gaming experience for all.
Big Potato’s stablemate Herd Mentality (also great) has the very same age recommendation but I would say that’s a much more relaxed (yet equally speedy) play but junior players (aged 7+) can easily participate.
Some True Blue kipper recipients will be lousy liars and I’ve seen some internet forums suggesting house-ruling that players need only say their answer once to prevent inept fibbers from crumbling under intense interrogation from DCI Guesser.
crowd pleaser
It’s definitely a game for a crowd (up to ten fishy friends). When playing with just 4 or 5 players (one of which is the Guesser) it can feel a bit stunted, but this game truly shines in larger groups when the Guesser has a larger pond of fake answers to eliminate and will provide ample mirth for social occasions or after dinner gatherings.
Moderate
2+
20 mins
Easy
Marvellously entertaining and quick to teach. A speedily played party game for all ages. Lots of giggles to be had with the invented answers. Great for groups of 6 or more. So much better than the less successful Smells Fishy for some reason. .
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