Players: 2-5
Playing Time: 30-45 minutes
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)
The Components
FarFalia ships with 92 cards and a rulebook.
The Cards: The cards are all printed on medium-weight cardstock at normal size, with a nice linen-texture finish. Of the cards, there are: 52 play cards (divided into 4 suits of 13 each); 25 subject cards; 10 wild cards; and 5 team cards.
There are 4 suits of cards in the play deck, red, green, blue, and orange. Each of them tends to feature one particular subject--red strawberries, green leaves, blue fish, and orange seashells--except the 8, 10, and 12 of each suit instead feature a butterfly. In turn the subject cards and wild cards each feature those 5 subjects, on colored backgrounds for the subjects and on white backgrounds for the wild cards. The iconography is all pretty simple, slightly colorful, and somewhat plain.
The team cards show how points are scored, and are divided into 3 different colors, for the 3 teams in a 5-player game.
Rulebook: A black and white rulebook with a number of examples and pictures. The rules seem a bit long and intimidating through their presentation, though they’re actually quite simple.
Box & Tray: As with other Allegro daVinci games, this one comes in a slightly flimsy cardbox with a very sturdy hard plastic tray inside for holding and separating the cards. It’s a very nice design.
On the whole, FarFalia has above average components that are pretty but plain; thus it earns an above average "4" out of "5" for Style.
The Gameplay
The object of Farfalia is to match displayed subject cards through multiple rounds of trick-taking play. The game is really intended for 5 players, and thus the rules for that version are presented here.
Starting a Round: FarFalia has a couple of unique elements to it, most of which come out in the start of a round of play.
First of all, there are partnerships in the game, but they change. At any one time, the dealer is on his own team, the player to his left, and the player two seats beyond form a partnership, and the other two players form a partnership.
Second, the game is point-based (meaning that you win by getting certain point-valued cards rather than just taking tricks), but which cards are valuable change from round to round. At the start of a round, the dealer shuffles the "subject" deck, the cards of which show strawberries, leaves, fish, seashells, and butterflies, then flips five up; these determines which targets are valuable in the current round.
The dealer then deals out the 52 cards in the deck, 10 to each player other than himself, who gets 12 (2 of which he discards). Finally, the dealer determines trump, either by stating a color or else by saying no-trump. (As you see, there are a few things here intended to benefit the dealer, which makes sense because he's on his own team.)
Playing a Round: The gameplay proper is a pretty normative trick-taking game with trump. Players lead tricks by playing a specific card, and others have to follow that card's suit unless they're out of the suit. The highest card of the suit wins, unless there's a trump, in which case the highest trump wins.
There's one element of difference, however: scoring points. Each turn the player who took a trick may take one and only one card from the trick and set it aside for scoring; this must be one of the subjects that's needed, and one that his partnership doesn't yet have. As you may recall from the description of the components above, one of the subjects, the butterfly, can be found on the 8, 10, and 12 of each suit; the other 4 subjects each appear on the other 10 cards in one of the suits.
Ending a Round: At the end of a round each player in each patnership scores a number of points based on the number of subjects they jointly matched: 1, 3, 6, 10, or 15 points, depending on how many of the 5 subjects they matched.
Dealership now passes to the player with the least points; note that this changes partnerships as well.
Ending the Game: The third hand is the last; it scores double. Afterward the two players with the highest scores are the winners.
Other Player Numbers: The game is absolutely intended for five players. There are, however, rules for other players which do work. In 4-player there are permanent partners, and some slightly awkward rules for not being able to take points in the first three tricks. For 2- or 3-players there are dummies.
Relationships to Other Games
FarFalia is a trick-taking game, an entirely common genre of card games that includes everything from Bridge to Hearts. Its most unique feature is that it's a serious partnership trick-taking game that supports 5 players. I'm aware of very other trick-taking games that support this player number, with the exception of Mu (a much more complex game, as it happens). FarFalia doesn't have elaborate bidding systems like you find in many of the more complex trick-taking games, but it does have solid play structure.
FarFalia was originally invented as FunF, and later renamed Chinkway, the term still used for the slightly advanced rules, which can also be found online. The FarFalia version of the game, besides having its own deck of cards, also makes the notable choice for the butterfly cards to be 8-10-12, rather than the three face cards as they appear in Chinkway. This seems like a very good change, since it makes it that much more difficult & stressful to take a butterfly.
FarFalia is the fourth member of daVinici's allegro series of games, which also includes Abracadabra, Mister Bill, and Moby Pick. The others all seem to me to be kid's or family games; while this one is simple enough, and will be very playable at a family gathering, it also strikes me as the only game in the Allegro series likely to satisfy serious gamers as well.
The Game Design
In his designer's notes for FarFalia, Derek Carver notes that he had a couple of purposes when he originally designed the game for his group of friends. First, he wanted a strong card game that could be played by 5 players. Second, he wanted a game where partnerships changed, so that an inexperienced player could be shared by everyone. In these goals FarFalia succeeds admirably, and indeed they're what make it a good game.
Beyond that it's got fair trick-taking gameplay, with the interesting element that the point-cards switch from round-to-round, and sometimes you have to make a hard choice about what to keep from a trick during play. Even in the 4-player game (which is what I actually playtested) these elements keep things fresh & interesting.
On the whole, FarFalia is an above average trick-taking game, and thus earns a "4" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
FarFalia breaks the mold of most other daVinci games by offering gameplay that's interesting not just to families, but to more serious gamers as well. With its 5-player play, changing partnerships, and (slightly) changing goals, FarFalia is worth taking a look at if you like trick-taking games.
