Just Tell Me What To Do: A Party Game of Amusing Advice

Help! I’ve got a dilemma! Should I run for president? Choose your advice carefully from the cards in your hand and you might just win a point and become the master advice giver!

Published by Flying Leap Games, this party game is designed for 4-8 players, plays in about 30 minutes, and is all about the crazy, out-there, and occasionally sound advice, you never asked for.

Gameplay

There are two decks: the dilemma deck and the advice deck.  Each player draws four advice cards. Players will be taking turns being the person with the dilemma. When it is your turn, you draw a dilemma and read it aloud. Some examples include ‘should I marry a mime’ and ‘should I swim across the widest part of the Mississippi River just to prove that I can’.

Every other player then chooses one of his advice cards to play face-down in the middle of the table. Most advice cards are quotes, but some require you to write something down such as a lyric from a song. When you have to write something down on a scrap of paper, you fold it and also place that sheet in the center of the table.

Once all the other players have played an advice card, you shuffle them and then read each advice card aloud. Next, each advice giver has 45 seconds to defend why his advice is the best, starting by stating which card was his.

You then select your favorite piece of advice (you can choose your criteria: funniest, weirdest, actual best!) and give the dilemma card to the person who played it. Everyone may then discard 1-4 advice cards before everyone draws back up to four. A new round begins with a new player drawing a dilemma card. The game continues until someone has won three dilemma cards and wins the game.

A hand of cards from Just Tell Me What To Do (photo provided by the publisher)

Review

Just Tell Me What To Do follows a familiar pattern as many other party games: one player acts as judge and the other players use the cards in their hands to answer prompt cards. But while there’s nothing very different in the mechanics, the tone of the cards themselves is quite creative. The result is something that’s familiar and therefore quite easy to teach, while still feeling fresh and funny.

There’s a nice, wide range in the advice cards, and seeing how the different quotes match up with the different dilemmas can be quite amusing. There’s also a notepad included that allows players to write out their own dilemmas, which is a nice touch and can add some variety.

This is definitely a party game that’s designed for an older audience. Not because the content is extreme or inappropriate so much as the fact that many of the dilemmas will just speak more to an older group. We also didn’t really see why you have to shuffle the advice cards before reading them aloud, since players claim them when making their defenses, and when a player has to write part of his answer you’re going to know whose it was anyhow.

There’s a really fun humor to the game. The dilemmas are varied from crazy to normal, while the quotes on the advice range from amusingly serious to funny in and of themselves. This range and combination end up leading to some great moments. Even the rulebook is written to be amusing. We quite enjoyed our time with it and thought it was an excellent addition to the genre.

Pros: Fun combination of quotes and dilemmas, easy to teach, good sense of humor

Cons: Unlikely to be appreciated by a younger audience, shuffling the played advice cards seemed unnecessary

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.