SNAP Review – Everything Ever

Quick! Name a U.S. state capital and somebody with a body part in their name!

Uhh. Roxie Hart and… Hartford!

All right! I guess you did it. But those are really random categories.

Well, this is a SNAP review for a game about everything ever. Literally!

Game

Everything Ever is a party game designed by Nathan Thornton and published by Floodgate Games.

The box says it’s “The party game you’ve been preparing for your whole life”. It’s for 2-10 players ages 12 and up to play in about 20 minutes.

Art

So Anitra, let’s talk about the art in Everything Ever.

Party games aren’t exactly known for great art, but these visual elements designed by Danielle Deley stand out.

Each of these 250 category cards has a unique illustration. They’re fairly simple line drawings, but they definitely give visual interest – and sometimes get your mind going in a specific direction.

Mechanics

What about that direction? What are the mechanics of Everything Ever?

This is basically a “name stuff as quickly as possible” game, like Anomia or Tapple.

Each player starts with three cards in their hand. On the table is a relatively small draw deck, and two cards face-up. After choosing a player to go first, turns go clockwise around the table.

On your turn, name something that fits the category on one of the face up cards, and then something that fits the category on the other card. Obviously, these should be things that no one else has said for that category.

Like the example we gave at the beginning, with Hartford and Roxie Hart.

But you have to do it quickly – you only have ten seconds!

If you can’t think of something for a category, you have two options:

You can either change the category, by placing a card from your hand on top of it, or you can take a penalty – the current category and any cards stacked underneath it. If you take a penalty, flip the top card from the deck to make a new category.

But what if I can come up with a single thing that fits both categories? Like Animated TV show and Fictional Dog – Bluey! (Who doesn’t like Bluey?)

But anyway – you get a bonus! You may either discard one of your penalty cards, or draw a card from the deck to add to your hand.

If you choose to draw, you also PLAY a third category out onto the table, making the game harder for everyone – at least until someone takes a penalty and brings it back to two categories again.

What if someone names something that doesn’t fit? Or they’re gaming the system with multiple very similar answers?

Then another player can play a Judge card on them, warning them to “watch yourself!” On a second offense, flip the Judge card to “You’re out of order”! The offending player takes a penalty, and all Judge cards around the table are returned to their owners.

The game ends when someone takes a penalty, but there aren’t any cards left in the deck.

The player with the fewest penalty cards wins!

Expectations

So, what did we expect from Everything Ever?

Well, if the name Nathan Thornton sounds familiar, that’s because he made Green Team Wins, which is a game we absolutely love. He also made the game Medium.

So we expected this would be another fun and family friendly party game.

I liked the portability of it – this game is nothing but cards, and you don’t even need the whole box to play. You can just grab a stack of cards and go.

That’s something I really appreciate about this game for sure. It’s not like certain cards are for certain parts of the table, or certain situations, so you have to do set up or anything. No! You can just grab a stack of cards, and they’re all one deck, and you just go.

Surprises

But there were some things that surprised us about this game. Do you want to talk about that?

The biggest surprise for me was the need to be “mean” and enforce the 10-second countdown. If you don’t, the game can drag on FOREVER, and then it’s not fun.

It really needs a 10 or 15 second timer included – something like a Tapple, where you could quickly reset it for the next person.

Our games always took a lot longer than 20 minutes, even at just two players.

I totally agree on this. And if you want this game to keep feeling fast paced, even a digital timer, like on your phone, just doesn’t work. Because there’s pushing and resetting. I’d rather have a quick sand timer or something physical to it. I realize that the whole point of this is that it’s quick and easy and you can grab stuff, but it really would help moving things along.

I was also surprised at how different this game felt as soon as we got “mean”.

The game felt like it was really dragging, but then we said “we just need to speed this up”. And immediately everything just felt way more fun! Obviously it was faster, but it actually improved the entire gaming experience.

But for me, it was really stressful to have to be vicious like that, and enforce a time limit. I’m fine when a game imposes that on me with a timer. Please don’t make me be the arbitrator of who is taking too long.

Especially because mom’s always mean.

Recommended?

So Anitra, do we recommend Everything Ever?

I’m really torn on this one. On the one hand, kids younger than 12 can definitely play, and there’s even handicapping rules built in – you give younger players more cards in their hand to start, so they have more opportunities to avoid a penalty.

But I did not like having to make a judgement about when someone was taking too long or pushing our kids to go faster. Because of that, I’d only recommend it for gatherings where you’re comfortable being the “meanie” and enforcing a time limit on everyone.

This is something I totally agree with. A lightweight game with lightweight expectations is a must. You have to come into it with that. There’s a lot of games in this genre, and I don’t know if there’s space for another one.

But I do like how easy it is to set up. Right?

So Andrew, what are we going to rate this one?

I think we’re going to give Everything Ever three random categories out of five.

And that’s Everything Ever – in a SNAP!

---

Find Everything Ever on Amazon or direct from Floodgate Games.

The Family Gamers received a copy of Everything Ever from Floodgate Games for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?