Hey PI-Fans,
In a weird collision of entertainment IPs, YOU LYING SACK is a social game designed by illusionist Pen Jillette of ‘Penn & Teller’ and published by The Exploding Kitten company. In an intense game of social cues and poker faces YOU LYING SACK is a game of outsmarting your friends in a giant player elimination game of You-Know-That-I-Know (But do You-Know-That-I-Know-That-You-Know-That-I-Know) and rides more on how well players know each other and can read each other’s tells and social makers.
Each turn a players reaches into the titular Lying Sack and retrieves a number of ‘Bad Thing’ tokens as indicated on an escalating chart. Alternatively, they can feel around and retrieve the hidden ‘Good Thing’ token instead. After this they offer the contents of their clenched hand to each subsequent player, repeating the line “My hand is full of bad things. Will you take them?”
If nobody accepts, they keep any Bad Things they have drawn. Alternatively, if they have managed to sneak the Good Thing past the group, they instead redistribute a certain number of Bad Things they have accrued to the rest of the table. Likewise, if anyone challenges them, they keep any Bad Things they accept from the player. Alternatively, this means they may in-fact hand the active player Bad Things from their own pile.
Play continues, with players being eliminated the moment they accrue 10 Bad Thing tokens and the winner being the last player standing.
As a party game, YOU LYING SACK is deceptively simple to the point of elegance. The game’s cut and thrust instead revolves around the bamboozle with players attempting to maintain their poker face and avoid tells, or to actively confuse their friends into taking thing with bad outcomes. This makes it an elegant alternative to every-man-for-themselves themed deception games like Coup.
If you’re looking for a game which encourages you to straight up lie to your friends and you’re up for a little deception, YOU LYING SACK might be a great title for your shelf.
