Facade Games have a well established catalogue of 'party' games, distinguished by their packaging, which is usually in the form of an antique book. We've previously featured Salem 1692 and Tortuga 1667 on Board's Eye View, and the Western-themed Deadwood 1876 is the most recent addition to the series. Trophies is something of a departure.
For starters, there's no location and year in the title and no antique book-shaped box. Instead, Trophies comes in a sturdy 10 x 15 cm tin box. Inside, you'll find a deck of 70 125 x 65 mm cards and metal trophy that looks like a tiny version of the sort you might hope to win on a school sports day.
The cards have a letter of the alphabet on one side and a selection of categories on the other. A player takes the role of the 'judge' and takes control of the shuffled deck. The judge holds up the deck so that all the other players can see the letter on the frontmost card, and then the judge selects and reads out one of the categories. The other 2-30 players (yes, Trophies is a party game that can be played by almost any number of players!) are in a race to see who is first to come up with an answer that begins with the displayed letter and which meets the requirements of the category. The winner gets the card as a 'trophy' and the game continues until all the cards are exhausted. The judge then awards the metal trophy cup to the player who has amassed the most cards (they don't get to keep the trophy cup but they get to hoist it aloft). The game includes a 'participation trophy card' which can be awarded to the player who didn't win but who tried hardest.
That's the game in a nutshell. Facade's Travis Hancock explains that it's a game that was designed years ago by his parents Robert and Joann for their family to play. It's quite literally homespun fare but it works remarkably well; and works much better than many others as a party game because it is so simple and straightforward. And the fact that you are taking categories from one card and the letter from another gives Trophies infinite replayability.
And Facade aficionados need not fear; they're back with another antique book box and title with a date in it: Bristol 1350 is currently on Kickstarter.