In Quirk!, from Gibson’s Games, players of all ages compete to score as many tricks as possible in the style of the classic card game Go Fish! However, where the old favourite is known and loved by many, Quirk mixes things up with a unique rule set that has players acting like the characters on the cards to ask what the other player has.
Without a doubt a favourite among children, Quirk! often leads to a barrel of laughs for all concerned. The premise is very straightforward — each player is dealt three character cards (with green backgrounds) and then the deck is shuffled including all the remaining characters and a smaller range of trick and mischief cards (with the latter being optional).
Then, beginning with the first player, everyone takes turns to imitate one of the characters on a card they have, and in that style, must ask any other player whether they have any cards of that character. For example, if player one is holding a robot, a parrot and a yeti, then they may choose one of those characters and attempt to get cards of that same character from any other player.
Honestly, this is sometimes confusing, sometimes very difficult and almost always quite amusing. You definitely cannot take Quirk! too seriously and it’s often the case that for younger players especially the character voices and use of body language and position can be quite similar, but kids just love this game. For older players, well, the issue can be a willingness to throw themselves into the moment — but it’s more fun when they do!
Whenever a trick of three character cards is assembled, the player will put those three cards in front of them as a “Quirk.” This effectively acts as a point, but there are some cards in the deck that allow other players to steal a Quirk (or to cause mischief, such as banning anyone from making any noise during the turn).
We found most of the mischief cards (which I’ll just mention again are optional) to be quite fun because they changed the rules for everyone, but we found that some of the other “take that” cards (including steal and some of the others which effectively cause a player to skip a go) can reduce the fun level a little bit, so we actually choose to exclude those on some occasions — especially with younger players involved.
The actual components in Quirk! are very straightforward, with just an instruction pamphlet and a deck of cards to contend with. Artwork for the characters is cute and clear, appealing to all players and clearly delineating one character from another. Even excluding the optional Mischief module (or any other subset of cards) is easy due to the colour-coded backgrounds. For example, the characters come in both grey and white-backed variants, with the white ones being easier for players to imitate.
In general, a game like Quirk! is always a worthy addition to the shelves of any family game group. For young children, there’s loads of fun to be had here, whilst for older players the joy will come in seeing the kids have fun, and perhaps joining in with them from time to time. The components are made from good, thick card stock, and the box is small enough to store just about anywhere.
Quirk! Is available now from your friendly local game store.
