Muffin Time - First Play!

5th April 2022

It's a Tuesday and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club for some gaming goodness.

'I enjoyed Muffin the Mule.'
'You can get locked up for that.'

No wait, this isn't about Muffin the Mule, its about Muffin Time.
'I enjoyed Muffin Time.'
Not sure that sounds better? (Apologies for the old Goodies joke.)

Muffin Time is a light, off-beat party game that's easy to pick up and player with supposedly 20 minute play time.

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What's in a game?

• Cards: Muffin Time features a lot of cards in 3 types and that's it, there are no other components.
  The types are:
  Action cards: These blue bordered cards are played during the active player's turn, generally they benefit the active player or punish other players, frequently in the form of acquiring extra cards or forcing opponents to discard them.
  Counter cards: Green bordered counter cards can be played at any time and can affect other players' card plays.
  Trap cards: What do these red bordered cards do? They're played face-down and trap other players!

The cards are finished in a sturdy-feeling plastic coating and will probably stand up well to a lot of use.

The game utilises comedic and cartoony black-line illustrations with a dash of bright colour for the borders and card titles that suitability fits the game's style.

There's no iconography in Muffin Time to speak of and the game's filled with unusual or unique cards and rules exceptions. Consequently, all cards contain specific text on how they function.

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How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Shuffle the cards into a face-down deck and deal 3 to each player face-down.
• First Player: Determine a starting player.

That's it for setup, barely worth the bullet points!

On to play
The objective in Muffin Time is for a player to acquire exactly 10 cards at the start of their turn.
The game uses a typical turn order, at least it does at the start with the active player acting and play progressing to the left.
There are 2 phases to each turn.

• ​Trap: The active player may play a trap card in this phase. Trap cards are always played face-down and contain a specific condition and a penalty, when this condition is met by another player, the trap card is revealed and that player suffers the penalty, typically the penalty involves discarding cards.
  A trap might be triggered by putting cards down on the table or laughing at a joke on a card and so on.
  A player may have up to 3 trap cards in play at any time.
• Action: In this phase the active player can perform 1 of the following 2 cards.
  Play card: The active player may play a card from their hand and then resolve its action.
  Draw card: The active player may draw a card from the deck.
• Next player: Once the active player has had their turn, play progresses to the left.

Other rule

• Counter card: A counter card can be played at any time, even another player's turn and multiple cards can be played, including by multiple players.

Endgame
Play continues until any player has acquired exactly 10 cards in hand, upon which they must immediately shout 'It's Muffin Time!'
If, when that player becomes the active player they still have exactly 10 cards, then they win the game!

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After playing this trap I spent the rest of the game fake-yawning to try and induce other players into yawning. It didn't work.

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Overall
Despite being a rules-light game, there's a couple of interesting elements at play in Muffin Time.
Firstly and most obviously, are the trap cards: They require players to pay attention to the behaviour of their opponents in order to trigger traps. However, there's also a higher level of play at work, where participants can try to induce other players into falling into their traps, such as my aforementioned attempts to get the other players to yawn. It add an unusual and interesting facet of playing the player and not the game to the mix.

Secondly, is the action economy: Play a card or draw a card, it's a simple rule but it has an interesting effect. Essentially, playing a card gains the player whatever benefit that card gives them but it also loses them that card from their hand, thus making their goal 1 step further away. Does the benefit of playing it outweigh the cost? The answer will always be contextual, especially since some cards do stuff that's just funny and players will end up playing them just for the sake of playing them. The same quandary is actually also true of counter cards.

The core gameplay is highly situational, it requires players to adapt to unpredictable turns of play and exploit events as they occur with the cards they have in hand. This is not a game of planning ahead too much.
It's also bit of a silly game with some silly card actions such as 'Last player to stand up discards 2 cards.' There are also cards that may change the win condition, turn order etc.
If this sort of thing is an anathema to you, Muffin Time is probably one to skip.

Otherwise there's not too much to add about Muffin Time really. it's an easy to learn, pick and play party card game that can be a lot of fun if you don't take it too seriously and allegedly has a 20 minute play time and can be a good filler or finishing game.
I say allegedly 20 minutes because circumstances and certain card plays can dictate otherwise - games can go on considerable longer, is that good or bad? Muffin Time can be very enjoyable but it can also outstay its welcome. So, YMMV.

Don't let that put you off though. I feel that Muffin Time is good party game when played with the right mindset and is worth trying.