What’s the Smell?

We’ve had a lot of strong games in the last few days so now its time for one that is less so (not that i was necessarily expecting it to be) and that is game 18 of the “Bailey Family Sorta Summer Board Game Bonanza “What’s that smell” played by myself and Jack(7) & Toby(4).

“What’s that smell” is a party game where you take turn smelling cards (think 90s “smellovision” and “scratch and sniff”) and trying to guess as close to the smell as possible. The closer you get the better the score you acheive.

Its a simple concept and when it works it is glorious. Guessing vanilla or popcorn and getting it bang on was fantastic (I was blown aware when Jack guessed thyme and got it bang on).

You do half a dozen cards (there are 48) in the box and then loser then has to smell one of the whiff of shame cards (the nappy one is truly vile). Its a silly party game and it is what it is.

Now the issues are that many of the cards do not actually smell anything like what they are supposed to be. Pine is a good example. I am a DT teacher and have spent a decent chunk of the last 15 years working with pine wood… trust me… i know what pine smells like and it’s not whatever the pine card smells like.

Another issue is that the secondary score is often bonkers. Now on the strawberry one (that was a push at strawberry) the secondary guesses are jam and berries (makes sense). On pickles(gherkins) however (that again smelt nothing like it) the secondary guesses were mint and dill. Not convinced gherkins smell anything like mint.

Overall it provided 5 minutes of silliness but I really cant recommend it especially if you want to play an actual game. In the end we were just smelling and guessing and not keeping track of score.

Def not a must have!