I first heard of "Face-it" in Games magazine, where an interview was done with the founders of Cococo games - pro-ducers of "Face-it". They reported that Face-it had not done extremely well in sales, and bemoaned the fact that it was a good adult game, but looked like a children's game - putting off many people. The game looked bright and colorful, so I decided to give it a try, and see if the game was indeed a good adult game disguised as a children's game. So what's the verdict? I found that Face-it is okay for adults, but is at it's best when played with children - especially younger children. It's a decent filler, but isn't a game that adults will often request. Now for the longer answer… First, a short description of game play. Each player is given a set of plastic "coins", consisting of a "1", "2", "3", "4", and "5" value coin. A plastic lattice-type board is placed in the middle of the table, made up of forty squares. Forty-one plastic faces are put into a cloth bag and shuffled around. There are ten each of four colored faces (red angry, yellow happy, blue sad, and green surprised faces). There is also one white "sneaky" face in the bag. Each player draws four of the faces and places them in front of themselves. One player starts, and each player takes their turn clockwise. On their turn, a player may play as many of their faces as they want to, as long as they are of the same color, and as long as they are played next to each other on the board. After placing their faces in squares on the board, the player collects points, in the form of coins, from the player to their right. They get one point for every face they play. However, if they play the same color face next to a group of the same color already on the board, they get one point for every face in that group. Faces must be adjacent orthogonal, not diagonally. If at any time, a player cannot provide points for another player, they are out of the game (rare). After a player finishes, placing faces and scoring points, they draw faces from the bag to bring their total back up to four. If they draw the "sneaky" face, they immediately replace it back in the bag, and steal a face of their choice from an opponent of their choice. That opponent must play their next turn with only three faces. Once the white face is the only face left in the bag, the game is over when one player runs out of faces. The other players lose one point for every face they still have - and points are totaled. The player with the most points wins the game. Some comments on the game: 1). Components: The box is very bright and colorful, and is a good size. It's of okay quality, but holds all the components well. The cloth bag provided is big and roomy, quite easy to reach into and pull out the faces. The faces themselves are very colorful, and the expressions on each face are very easy to distinguish (so a colorblind person would have no problem with them.) The faces, about an inch to a side, are made of good quality, hard plastic, as is the board. The faces fit easily into the board, and sit in it so that a shake of the table doesn't affect them very much. The coins are also made of plastic, and are a plastic ring with a number in the middle, denoting the value. They are about an inch in diameter, and are easy to see and use. I only wish they were not to be stored in the cloth bag - so I added a plastic bag for them. This saves some separation time at the beginning of the game. 2). Rules: The rules come in English and French, and each comes printed on a double sided, single sheet of paper. One side explains the rules, which are tremendously easy to grasp, while the other side shows a pictorial example of the first 8 moves of a two-player game. Face-it can be taught and learned in less than a minute, and is very easy to teach to children. 3). Kids: This game is incredible for children! We played with our three-year old daughter, and even though she didn't grasp all the subtleties of the game, she was able to play easily. The game teaches counting, adding, colors, and facial expressions. It is very children-friendly, and attracts them with it's bright colors, large pieces, and easy rules. 4). Adults: Of course, the same things that attract kids may turn away adults. The game certainly has a "kiddish" feel. However, there is a certain element of strategy to the game. Should you play three yellow faces, scoring three points, when the person after you is going to play one yellow face, adding to that group, and taking four points from you? There is quite a bit of luck concerning which tiles are drawn from the bag, but it can be evened out with strategy. No one with whom I've played has come up with a "killer" strategy, but then again, no one has really tried. Most people look at the game as a nice, cute filler. 5). Fun Factor: But the game is fun. I find that the most fun comes from adults playing with children - because everyone can have a blast playing this game. Everyone loves to pull the "sneaky" tile from the bag, and everyone likes to take points away from their neighbor. The game isn't usually too cutthroat when played with children, while adults can be more evil towards one another. Either way, this tile-laying game provides quite a bit of fun! So I would recommend this game highly if you have children, especially young children. It's a great game to teach them decision making, and they will learn while doing so. Then, it can also double as a filler game for when the children aren't around. If you don't ever plan to play with children, then this game might be a worthwhile purchase, although I can think of several other filler games that adults would probably enjoy more. However, I have to give kudos to the makers of the game for producing yet another good family game that stands out against a lot of the trashy games in the local toy stores. Back to Table of Contents -- Game! #1 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com