Game Of Ham is a multi-faceted party game that is both hilarious and competitive. Joke, scheme and laugh your way to the finish line by playing the right answer card to win the judges favor. Are you ready to go HAM?
When looking for fun party games for adults, it can feel a little overwhelming with all the options out there. Game Of Ham combines so many different elements from popular games that there’s a little something for everyone.
Something cool about Game of Ham is that it uses a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-SA 2.0 to be precise.) This means that you’re free to “generate, remix, and share content freely as long as it is not for sale.” They offer cards to print for free on their site, and have an upcoming tool to create your own boards.
How Does It Work?
The objective of the Game of Ham is to be the first token to reach the finish line at the end of the board. This is done by answering prompt cards with joke cards and hoping the judge picks your answer. There’s also a series of white cards that can help you get the edge and mess up your opponents.
Gameplay Components
- Grey Cards: These are the question prompts
- Pink Cards: These are the cards used to answer the prompts.
- White Cards: These are game effects that can be used to mess up the opponents or give yourself an advantage
- Board Pieces: These are placed to form the game board
- Ham Tokens: The player pieces used for each player on the board
- Quickstart Guide: Small guide to learn how to play quick
- Full Rulebook: A larger rulebook full of optional rules and fun tidbits for the truly hardcore
Setting It Up
Before the game can begin each player needs to pick a up 10 Ham cards to form their hand.
Then the board is created out of the 4 board pieces. These can be mixed and matched to make unique layouts each game.
Then each player picks a ham token to place on the start square.
Shuffle each of the decks, place the white cards on the corresponding ham placeholders, and you’re good to go.
Playing The Game
The Game of Ham consists of many rounds or “tricks”. During a players turn someone is chosen as the judge, and they pick one of the grey prompt cards. Each other player must then play the pink card that they think best suits the grey one.
Once all the bets are in, the judge picks out a card and whoever’s it was gets to move their token on the board equal to one of the two numbers on the bottom. The player who won is now the judge for the next round.
From there it’s just a matter of hopping over to the finish line before your opponents. But watch out for the colored spots, if a player wins a trick on one of those spots they can grab a white card that will give them a random effect printed on the card.
There’s a slew of other rules in the official rulebook. Everything from alternate game modes to fun drinking rules, so you’ll always have something new to try.
Our Thoughts
Between the hilarious joke cards and the hectic game play, Game Of Ham is both fun and engaging.
With all the fun you’ll be having, you’ll hardly have time to think “Why is this game ham themed?”
With a ton of bonus rules and an enormous mountain of game cards, Game of Ham offers a ton of replay value. Although this game can seem like a bit of a hodge-podge at times, once the group settles on a list of their favorite rules, it quickly becomes a great way to spend some time with friends.
Fair warning, the content of Game of Ham falls on the crass side of things (think more along the lines of Cards Against Humanity than Apples to Apples).
Review disclosure: The folks behind Game of Ham reached out to offer us a copy of their game to check out. We requested a second copy that we’ll be giving away to one of our readers in the near future. If you have a game you’d like us to play, contact us. Please note that sending us a game does not guarantee that it will be featured on the site!
