This is a game for parents… who get to play as the kids;.. who win the game by driving their parents crazy! Spread the most chaos, avoid making your parents too happy and win the game! Coz, lets be real, Parenting is Easy!
Setup
- Each player chooses a colour, taking that coloured “Meeple” and “Chaos Cubes;” The Meeple will be played on the “Insanity Scale” and the Chaos Cubes will be held off board in your Reserve”
- Shuffle the “Trouble Cards” and deal three cards face down to each player. Keep the deck on the draw pile space on the board.
- Each player also gets a set of four “Marker Cards.” A set consists of one of each colour.
- Place your meeples on the “Start” space of the Insanity Scale. along the side of the board.
Gameplay Flow
Players earn “Chaos Cubes” by driving their parents crazy on the “insanity Scale” The crazier you drive them, the more Chaos Cubes you get. Players will take turns placing the cubes on the board in order to cause the most chaos.
But if you go too far at either end of the Insanity Scale, the opposite effect happens. You go all the way to the top of the scale, you’ll have to remove three of your cubes from the board .. tread carefully.
At the end of the game, there will be points awarded for number of Chaos Cubes placed, areas on the board where you have a majority of cubes, and bonus points you’ve earned from cards.
The player who most recently talked to a child goes first as the “Bad Influence”.
Round Phases
Each round, the role of the Bad Influence is passed to the next player to the right.
Afterwards, there are four round phases:
- Trouble phase: Each player chooses which of their three “Trouble Cards to play, they then match it with a coloured “Marker Card” to show which player the Trouble Card affects.
- Reveal Phase: All players reveal their cards at once. They are resolved clockwise from the Bad Influence of that round. The players’ meeples will likely move to different spaces on the Insanity Scale to show different round bonuses.
- Tantrum Phase: The Bad Influence rolls the Tantrum Die. It affects all players, moving them up or down on the Insanity Scale and could be a great benefit or could sabotage your whole turn.
- Placement Phase: Depending on where you finished on the Insanity Scale, take that many cubes to place on the board. In some instances you may even have to remove some of your cubes from the board. The Bad Influence places a cube on the board first, then players go clockwise placing a cube until all cubes are used for that round. Players can also resolve some cards played in the Reveal Phase during this round as well.
Types of Cards
During the Trouble Phase you get to choose a trouble card and play it blindly. You also pick a marker card which indicates which player the trouble card affects. ALL cards are revealed at once so other player’s choices can’t influence your decision. There are three types of cards.
Sweetness Cards: These decrease your parents’ insanity… these are bad and you would Likely play them against other players. But maybe there’s a different strategy to using them?
Mischief Cards: These cards increase your position on the insanity scale possibly Leading to more Chaos Cubes. These are usually best played on yourself but not always.
Life Event Cards: These cards have all kinds of varying “rule bending” effects. If it isn’t obvious which Marker Card to use, play the card against yourself.
End of the Game
When the last empty square has been claimed on the board, the game ends!
Players count up their points to see how they did:
- 1 Point for every Chaos Cube you have on the board.
- You get the listed point bonuses for any room or area where you have a majority (more than half) of the squares claimed.
- Add any points that you may have gotten from the Trouble Cards.
The winner of the game is the best troublemaker and now likely goes back to their life of looking after children and being on the receiving end of the trouble (But sometimes sweetness).
Golden Bell recently reached out to me about their upcoming title Unbroken; they also mentioned they had another game coming to Kickstarter called Parenting is Easy. I loved the silliness of this idea for a game. It is also funny; as I’m coming to the age where all my friends are having or recently have had children; so I thought this would be an amazing game to play with them.
I headed over to Chris and Mel’s house; as they have just had their second ‘bundle of joy’ 3 months ago. Chris is an avoid board gamer and it was actually one of my recent board game nights that he got the call from his wife and told she was going into labour; so I thought this game is fitting. It was actually the first game he has played since having his baby.
We caught up, had dinner and then I told him a brought over a game, he was excited. He looked at Mel to see if it was OK to be excited. As his hobby probably costed more than the baby. I showed Mel the game first and she thought it was amazing, couldn’t stop laughing and actually said, ‘I want to play this.’ Once Chris saw it, with a roll of his eyes that said it all. We quickly read the rules, set up the game and we played for about 3 or so hours.
The game is light, quick and easy to learn. The hilarity of this game is something else. I know I said quick, but games took longer than the box recommended. This had nothing to do with the game and everything to do with Mel. Every time a mischief of Sweetness card was played, she had a story or it reminded her of a story or it happened to a Mum at her mothers’ group.
They both loved this game, I found myself actually just sitting out 4 or 5 games before they noticed I hadn’t played in the while. Watching them remember things and laugh about others was amazing. This is what really sets this game apart, they have taken real life events, events that are so common and made it into something so enjoyable. Even though I don’t have any kids, with all of Mel’s stories and Chris grunts, cheeky giggles or smiles when certain card was played. It made this game something special; It was so much more enjoyable than I could have ever imagined.
Normally here I would write about the art, what I loved and hated. The use of colours or iconography, historically elements or something. Bit I don’t need to say any of that; I just have to mention a name Lunarbaboon. With almost 1 million followers on Facebook and an art style that is so recognisable; there is nothing I can say about the art, but LOVE IT! It wouldn’t surprise me if I didn’t see one of his comic strips or art pieces shared on twitter multiple times a day.
It is fun, silly and quite nostalgic (or too real depending on how you see it) if you have kids or even if you don’t. This is a great little game that I thought would be ok, but instead was something special. There were several times I thought back to some of the horrible things I put my parents through. This is a game you need to own as were were all kids once and thought Parenting is easy!
