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Happy Salmon


Happy Salmon is probably the silliest game I have played this year. That's not a criticism, just a statement of fact.

Published by North Star and distributed in the UK by Coiledspring, the game is attractively packaged in a salmon-shaped neoprene zipper bag. It plays up to six and is best with that number.

Each player has a shuffled stack of 12 cards. These each comprise three copies of the four different cards in the game. There are no 'turns'. Instead, players stand around a table and they flip over the top card of their stack. They then shout out the action shown on their card, and they keep calling out this action until another player calls out the same action. At this point, both players carry out the action and discard that action card. They carry on in this fashion, with the winner being the first to discard all their cards.

The four actions on the cards are 'High 5' (any two players with this matching card slap their hands together; 'Pound it!' (both players bump fists); 'Switcheroo' (players switch places - taking their cards with them); and 'Happy Salmon' (the two players slap each other's forearms).

Because there are no turns, the game is fast and furious. All the actions are taking place simultaneously while others are continuously shouting the actions on their own cards. If you've ever played the old card game Pit, then this is Pit on speed.

The game itself couldn't be simpler. Happy Salmon boils down essentially to Snap with groping. Is it intellectually challenging? Of course not. Is it fun? Absolutely.

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