When you bring a Big Potato game to a fun gathering of friends, you’re usually guaranteeing yourself to be the MVP of the night. There’s an almost immediate expectation that these represent the best of party games, ones which can be learnt in moments, and lead to much hilarity. As a result, I was borderline smug when the group pulled Sounds Fishy from the assorted games stuffed bags for life.

Sounds Fishy is a bluffing style game, where you provide answers to a question. Depending on whether you’ve been distributed a red herring, or a blue fish (it’s never made clear why blue fish are more inherently trustworthy over say, a rainbow fish, but we move with the choices made), you either provide a false but convincing answer, or you read the actual answer from the back of the card. One player, having been designated question master, will know the question but not the answer, and will be charged with sorting the fact from fiction.

It initially feels counter intuitive however, as instead of trying to find the truth (the single blue fish player), you’re trying to find as many red herrings as you can. Bank your points before you hit the blue fish of truth to gain the most, or lose them by stumbling across the blue fish in your attempt to do so. It’s a different way of thinking to most bluffing games of this style – pick the wrong answers first – and on first few plays, with any group found players would occasionally forget, causing us to restart.

Then comes the scoring. After more plays than I should probably admit to, we finally cracked how the scoring worked, after initially just allowing the player who seemed to understand it the most tell us how many points to pick up. Rationally, it makes sense, by which I mean the instructions are clear. However, it feels like you should be scoring for the opposite, or gaining points for a great answer, so it’s easy to get muddled. Winning in party games is a small part of the enjoyment you get from it, so whilst initially felt a little jarred, the game makes up for it.

That’s because of course, the questions have a hint of silliness to them in most occasions, so providing a slightly absurd answer is often within the theming, where hilarity then ensues. It’s easy to panic and struggle to provide an answer, but even some of those are labelled ‘that sounds so ridiculous, it might even be true’, meaning you’ll sometimes risk it for a biscuit on an entirely obscure answer. We giggled our way through the style of answer one player consistently gave, only to assume red herring – where miraculously, it was the one time she played blue. We questioned whether answers were based on video games, news pieces, strange stories, when they were true. We asked why in the world you answered that, debriefed the why’s afterwards, and found the game facilitated our fun perfectly.

Arguably the biggest setback is also a sign of a good game. There are 200 cards included, which is more than enough for casual play, but if you enjoyed it in the same way my gaming group had, with cards being so memorable, we’ll easily be out of cards in the next year. At present, Big Potato don’t offer the likes of card only expansions, but given it's representative of wanting to play it frequently, it’s not the worst dispute to have.

Charlie Pettit

PLAY IT? YES

Beneath the silver scales lies the expected rainbow fish.

Buy a copy of Sounds Fishy here

Try this if you liked Snakesss

Another Big Potato Game with an elected truth giver, bluffing, and unusual questions.

Read the full review here

Buy Snakesss here

Designer: Big Potato Games

Publisher: Big Potato Games

Time: 25-40 minutes

Players: 2-4

Ages: 8+

Price: £45

What’s in the box?

• 9 Fish
• 80 Point tokens
• 200 Question cards
• Card dispenser

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