Smug Owls Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Smug Owls, a word based party game designed by Runaway Parade Games. In Smug Owls, players are coming up with snappy answers to questions in the hopes of scoring the most points .

As teens, my best friend and I were obsessed with the word “smug.” We had mugs with a smug emoji face printed on them (smug mugs) and once even hosted a party with a smug theme. Needless to say, I was immediately interested when I saw the title of this game. And while it could have any name and any theme, the cute owl artwork helps too.

Smug Owls is a game of riddle solving, with the box boasting a 3-15 player count, though I wouldn’t recommend it with more than 10 unless you use the no scoring variant, which I’ll touch on later.

Smug Owls includes two decks of cards—the Riddle cards and the Conjunction cards. To set up, place a stack of 8 conjunction cards on the table, then split the riddle cards into two decks and place these on either side of the conjunction stack. Finally, place the “What” and “?” card on the table, faceup, with room between them for the three cards that will create your riddle.

To play the game, draw one card from each of the three stacks to generate a riddle. For example, you might draw these three cards: “is strong,” “and always,” “is edible”; thus your riddle is “What is strong and always is edible?” Players immediately begin to think of an answer and, once they have it, slap their hand on the table.

Once there is only one player who has not thought of an answer, that player becomes the “Smug Owl” and will be the judge for that round. The Smug Owl will award the three cards that generated the riddle to their favorite answer(s). They may award all three to a single answer, or split them among multiple