Happy Salmon Board Game Review:

Happy salmon is a chaotic party game that turns high-fiving your friends into a sport. You enter a shouting bout trying to find other people with the same card as you. once you find someone, do the appropriate action with them before discarding your card. The first player to exhaust their deck wins.

Setup

Give each player a deck.

gather in a large open space, around a coffee table, or a similar small table (preferably without chairs).

How to Play

Flip up the top card of your deck so only you can see it. It will have one of the following 4 actions on it:

• High 5: slap your hands together
• Pound it: lightly fist bump
• Switcheroo: Trade places (hold on to your deck)
• Happy salmon: lightly slap each other’s wrist 3 or more times

Once you know which card you want, you must communicate this to the other players. Since everyone is doing this simultaneously, you are not allowed to show your card; it usually presents as shouting and using hand signals. If you find someone with the same card as you, you both do the action and discard your cards. And repeat this process until your deck runs out.

If you struggle to find someone with the same card, you may move your current card to the bottom of your deck and draw another card.

Whoever runs out of cards in their deck first wins.

Pros

The cards are made of stiff, high-quality material, allowing them to be used rougher than you would typically treat cards.

This game is very compact, making it perfect for traveling.

This game is so quick you can never play it once. Often lasting 3-5 exciting games that end once everyone gets tired. As you had so much fun, you can’t keep track of who won the most.

Cons

Finding a good place to play Happy Salmon can be challenging. It is hard to find a place with room for all your actions throughout the game while having a convenient spot to discard the cards. This often leads to just throwing the cards on the ground.

Often you will have to throw cards onto the floor to discard. This is not as fun to clean up as it’s difficult to determine if you have all the cards. The cards may also bend, or you may find hairs stuck on the cards.

Accessibility

Color Blind: Happy salmon doesn’t rely on color outside the setup. The setup relies on giving each player a different color deck.

Reading: reading is helpful, but with only 4 card types, it’s easy to memorize what each card means.

Children: Children would have a blast playing this game and have very few hurdles to overcome.

Who would love this game?

This game is perfect who people who want an activity to do with their friends. Perfect for getting close friends closer or turning strangers into friends. This game is the perfect icebreaker, with only 1 minute of explaining the rules before 5 minutes of gameplay.

Final Thoughts

Happy salmon is a shallow game on the surface. Still, when you look deeper, you find this simple card game can leap past awkward moments faster than a salmon leaps up a waterfall. While not a great board game, Happy Salmon makes a great activity.

If you are looking for a casual party game with lots of space for talking to the other players, Happy salmon may be the wrong game for you.

If instead, you are looking for a fun and goofy icebreaker that will have everyone moving, Happy Salmon may be just what you are missing.

If you would like to purchase Happy Salmon and support Tabletop Game Source, you can purchase it from Amazon here.

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