Co-op party game I Felt... is like Codenames with emotions instead of words

A new party game is putting an emotional spin on the collaborative guessing challenge of team games like Codenames.

I Felt… is a co-op board game in which the players must work together to guess the emotion felt by another player - whether that’s sadness, happiness, anger or another mood represented by a grid of illustrated cards in the middle of the table, not unlike Codenames’ grid of words. The feelings cards aren’t labelled with specific emotions, leaving them open to interpretation.

One player draws a hidden card from a separate deck, which determines the mood they must guide their teammates toward during that turn. They must then tell a true story that embodies the feeling on the card. (Optional sentence cards provide fill-the-blank prompts like “Feelings when today’s meal was [blank]” and Feelings when I learn that [blank] was [blank]” to help spark inspiration.)

Once the story is over, the rest of the group take a moment to consider it before pointing simultaneously to the card they think represents the mood, before having three minutes to discuss, question the storyteller and attempt to agree on a single answer. Correct answers earn points on a scorecard, which judges the players’ relationship at the end of the game once everyone has had a turn as the storyteller. The game plays with up to six people, lasting between 10 and 45 minutes depending on the group size (and how long your story goes on for, presumably).

Previously released in Japanese by indie board game studio Avignon Games, where it won the special prize in the Board Game Japan Cup design competition, I Felt… will launch a Kickstarter campaign on July 27th to crowdfund a wider global release. The publisher plans to launch the game at the Essen Spiel convention in Germany this October, followed by a retail release.