Year: 2017 | Players: 2-12 | Minutes: 30+ | Ages: 10+
This Muse card game review was made after playing the game about 10 times.
What is Muse?
Created by designer Jordan Sorenson and published by Quick Simple Fun Games, Muse is a party board game for four or more players that can also be played cooperatively by two or three players. In the game, one player gives their teammates a clue about a card that they are holding, and then those teammates need to guess which card they had.
How to Play Muse
There are two sets of cards used in Muse, the Masterpiece cards and the Inspiration cards. Each Masterpiece card has unique artwork that the Muse players use to give their teammates clues. The Inspiration cards are the clue cards in the game.
When playing the party game version of Muse, one team will draw six Masterpiece cards and two Inspiration cards. They will then choose one Masterpiece card and one Inspiration card to give to the current team’s Muse. The Muse uses the Inspiration card’s clue to describe the Masterpiece card. The six Masterpiece cards are then shuffled together and the Muse’s teammates have to guess which Masterpiece card the Muse player was holding.
In the cooperative game, the Muse player draws one Masterpiece card and two Inspiration cards, then chooses which Inspiration card to use. The Masterpiece card is then shuffled together with five other cards and the other players try to guess which Masterpiece card the Muse was holding.
In the 4+ player party game, the team that gets five correct guesses first wins. In the co-op game, you’re simply trying to get five correct guesses before you get three incorrect guesses.
Check out our Top 10 Co-op Adventure Games!
Pros and Cons
Pros
- The surreal art on the Masterpiece cards is ridiculously nice. In our first few games we spent just as much time looking at and talking about the cards as we did actually playing game.
- Some of the Inspiration cards lead to some hilarious moments. For example, one guy in my group had to make a facial expression to describe a Masterpiece card that had a waterfall in it and he chose to look down with his mouth wide open… and it worked!
- Just about anyone can learn how to play Muse in about a minute. There is a one-page set of rules for the party game, and the co-op rules fit on a single card.
- It’s nice to have another card game that can work as both a party game and as a co-op.
- The cooperative version only takes 10-15 minutes to play, making this a solid filler if you end up enjoying the game.
Cons
- I can’t complain about getting 100 unique pieces of art in the Masterpiece deck, but I still think there should have been more cards included in the base game. It doesn’t take long to see all of the cards and it is a bit of a letdown every time you get the same cards to use as the Muse.
- My group found the game to be far too easy in co-op mode. After we realized it was too easy, we decided to have the Muse draw one Inspiration card rather than two. That made it a bit more challenging.
Final Thoughts
I wouldn’t recommend buying Muse if you’re only interested in playing the co-op variant, but it is worth owning if you know you’ll have chances to use it as a party game.
It works pretty well as a co-op filler game—especially if you make the changes I mentioned earlier—but it lacks replay value since you’ll see all of the cards pretty quickly. If you’re looking for a game like this that does play very well as a co-op, definitely check out Mysterium.
I do recommend Muse if you’re looking for a simple party game with great artwork. It is a lot of fun picking the cards your opponents have to use and trying to win the race to five correct guesses. If you enjoy party games like Dixit, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to enjoy Muse too.
Muse Links
BGG | Amazon | CoolStuffInc | eBay
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