Publisher(s) Mega Brands Age range 12 and up Playing time | Players 3-10 Setup time 1 minute Random chance Medium | |
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The Perfect Present is a party game about giving and receiving both realistic and imaginary gifts.
Contents
Each of the over 750 cards is a unique gift that people may desire in life. The gifts range from materialistic (a hot tub, a personal servant) to aspirational (be president, be fluent in all languages) to selfless (world peace, cure cancer) to fantastic (turn invisible, converse with animals, no more bad drivers) to ridiculous (a pack of tiny dogs, fruitcake).
The object of the game is to figure out which of these gifts from your hand another player would most like, and being rewarded when you give the best gift.
Rules
Each player is dealt seven cards to keep in their hand. These are potential gifts and they should be kept secret from other players. Each player is also given one challenge card. The dealer deals out eight more cards, face-up, in the center. This is the "Gift Mart". The remaining cards are left in the draw box.
Players choose someone to go first; this person is the "gift receiver". All other players choose a gift from their hand they think the gift receiver would want most, and place it face-down in front of the receiver. When everyone has given a gift, the receiver mixes them up, and flips them over one by one. The receiver reads each gift allowed, and must choose one to keep—an entirely personal decision based on what the receiver likes most. The receiver keeps the gift in their "loot pile", a collection of accumulated gifts displayed in front of the player. The rejected gifts are discarded.
The loot pile represents score. The number of cards in a player's loot pile is that player's score: this means a receiver will always get a point on their turn.
The player that gave the chosen gift reveals him or herself, and is then rewarded by getting to choose a gift from the Gift Mart for their own loot collection, thus also scoring a point. The first player to have a loot pile of 7 or more gifts wins. (Note that if you only need one point to win, you cannot receive gifts, and instead may discard as many cards as you want and draw new ones; the exception is if everyone needs only one point to win, in which case you can receive a gift for the win.)
If nobody has won, players refill their hands to seven cards, and refill the Gift Mart to eight cards. Play rotates clockwise, giving the next person a chance to receive gifts.
Each player has one challenge card. If a player feels their gift should have been chosen, but it wasn't, they can spend their challenge card and describe to everyone why their gift should have been chosen. The player of the chosen gift gets a rebuttal. Then all players vote to determine whose gift actually gets chosen.
Twice during the game (at any point) a player may discard up to 3 cards and draw new ones in attempt to find better gifts to give.
Also, if all players agree, the Gift Mart can be discarded and refreshed twice during the game.
After the game ends, players are encouraged to look at everyone's gifts and decide who has the coolest stuff, and to look for trends in everyone's chosen gifts.