JinxO

The Game

JinxO is a party game from Indonesia. It is for 4 to 7 players. The key to victory is to be able to understand and guess how your friends think. Every card in the game specifies a category, for example scary noises in the night. Based on the category, and without any discussion, players must write three items down on their respective player boards. Your goal is to write items which others will also write. 

There are 9 boxes on your player board. The game is played over 3 rounds, and within each round you will use 3 cards from the deck. For each card you must write 3 items. You decide which boxes you want to write in. Once written, you can't change it for the rest of the round. Using the photo above as an example, the items written were based on (1) things you eat with instant noodles, and (2) body parts you wish to enhance. For the latter, my friends wrote things which are... ahem... inappropriate, aaaaand I shall leave it up to your imagination. 

You do scoring once everyone's board is filled. You take turns reading an item from your board. If no one has the same item as you, you cross it out. As long as at least one other person has the same item, both you and them circle the item. You will score points for this. If exactly one other person has the same item, congratulations, you both shout "JinxO!", and you get to fill the star next to the item. A filled star is worth 2 points. 

Once any player has all 9 items crossed out or circled, the round ends. You add up your points for the round. Circles are 1 point each. Stars are 2 points each. If you have complete rows or columns circled, you score points too. The scores are written along the edges of the grid. The box at the top right helps score both the 3 point column and the 3 point row, so if there is an item you are confident about, you should fill it here. Similarly, the bottom left box only helps you score the 1 point column and row, so if there is an item you are unsure about, you probably want to put it here. 

The game is played over 3 rounds. Highest scorer wins. 

The Play

This is a game about getting to know your friends. Over a game you will use 9 cards, which means 9 different categories to talk about. You don't talk when filling your player board. You talk when doing scoring. When you read an item which others have, you feel happy you share the same way of thinking. When you read an item which no one has heard of or thought of, you may trigger some interesting discussion. They may make fun of you for being weird. Well, you can also call them uncouth. 

There are some tactical considerations. This is not the kind of party game where you are trying to make things up and be creative. You have to think about how your friends think and what they know. If you want to score well, you shouldn't be filling your player board simply based on your opinion and experience. You should be thinking about what your friends will be writing. The best case is only one other person writes the same item, but this is hard to deliberately achieve. It normally takes some luck. 

The categories in this photo above: (1) food you eat with your hands, (2) cult classic movies and (3) gods from mythologies. The movies I wrote were not really cult classics. They were all blockbusters. Had I written movies which I perceived as cult classics, I probably wouldn't match with any of my friends because they might not know those movies that I know. And Lord of the Rings matched with exactly one other friend! Woohoo!

The Thoughts

  

There is one type of party game where players play the role of judges. One example is Cards Against Humanity. Who scores and eventually wins is not based on objective rules but on preferences and decisions of other players. To me these don't feel like proper games. They are more about persuading your judge friends and talking convincingly, as opposed to using skills and strategy. I like that JinxO requires skills and strategy. If I read my friends well, I will do well. I don't need to be a great salesman. I'm not specifically a fan of party games, but I quite enjoyed JinxO. It works very well with non gamers. I brought it to a friend gathering of non gamers, and they all loved the game. I made the right pick!