Herd Mentality Board Game Review

By: Big Potato Games   Players: 4-20     Ages: 10+     Time: 20-30 mins

The best party game for family, friends, and cow rustlers, Herd Mentality is a fabulous game that guarantees fun and laughter.

The aim of the game is simple: think like the herd and answer the questions how you think everyone else will.

Answering the same result in winning points, but if your answer is too unique you’ll be stuck with the pink cow and won’t score until you offload it to somebody else!

What Is Herd Mentality Board Game? 

Herd Mentality is an award-winning party game that was designed by Rich Coombes and Dean Penn, and produced by Big Potato Games in 2020. The game has sold over one million copies since it’s release and is popular with all kinds of gamers. The aim of the game is to answer a wide variety of questions in a way that you think the majority of other players will. You’ll only score points if your answer is in the majority, so the game is as much about getting inside the minds of your opponents as it is about providing logical answers. But try not to be too unique or niche with your answers as if yours is in the minority you get 0 points. The key to winning is identifying the most common answer among the group.

Set-Up Herd Mentality Board Game

The game comes with a number of amusing and unique assets which add to the experience. Before you start the game, you’ll need to assemble a 3-D paddock that stores all the cow tokens, which act as points. Once done, the mini pink cow is placed in the paddock on top of the tokens. Everyone needs something to write their answers on and a player is designated the question wrangler, who’ll ask questions each round. Once that’s done, the question cards are shuffled and placed face down and the game can begin. The answer pads box dimensions are also provided to help you understand the physical size of the game packaging.

How To Play The Herd Mentality Board Game

Each turn the question wrangler will read out a question card. These are all very unique and range vastly. Some are genuine general knowledge questions (Name one of the seven dwarfs), whilst others are opinion-based (What’s the best song by the band Queen) and others are downright philosophical (At what time does breakfast become lunch). Once the question has been read out, all the players must then write down their answer without it being seen.

This is what makes the game very unique. Players may have a specific answer stored away in their head that they would use by default, or otherwise be able to think one up quickly. But that’s not how this game works! Players must try and guess what everyone else’s answer will be and use that as their answer too. In this game, it’s majority rule and there are no bonus points for unique or interesting answers.

Everyone will then take it in turns to reveal their answers to the rest of the players. Players that provided the most popular answer overall will receive a cow token. Players whose answers were different from the majority won’t gain any points at all. If in the rare instance, there is a draw and an equal number of players provide different answers then nobody gains any points. When a player provides an answer that is completely different from anybody else’s they are ‘gifted’ the pink cow. Although this little guy is adorable (even with his angry little face) it does create one large obstacle: players can still collect tokens as they answer questions, but they cannot win the game if they’re in possession of the angry pink cow! The only way to be rid of this bovine is if another player answers a question with a unique answer in a future round. The cow is then passed to them.

The game continues in this fashion with cards being read and answers provided until someone manages to collect eight cows and wins the game. If more than one player reaches eight cows in the same round, these players continue the game until one of them is a point ahead, at which point they can claim victory.

As you can see, the game is pretty simple to get to grips with, with each round consisting of ‘ask a question, reveal answers, score points’. It makes for a very easy game to teach other players and set-up being minimal means you can jump into a game very quickly. There is a mini version of the game too with even less to set up. Points are tracked on paper rather than with counters and the box serves as the corral, so you have the option of taking it on the go or playing it at home.

Who Is This Party Game For?

The great thing about Herd Mentality is that almost anyone can play. It’s a trivia game that doesn’t punish players for their lack of knowledge but instead rewards them for being able to guess what everyone else will answer. That means you don’t have to have all the answers, just some general knowledge and a bit of an insight into what your fellow players are like. The game may not be appropriate for younger players, not because of the content of the questions, but simply because they may not possess the relevant knowledge at this stage in their lives to competently answer them. That said, you can just skip some questions and move on to the opinion-related ones. I don’t think my 10-year-old could name many fictional mice for example, but I’d love to hear her answer to: ‘A bear runs at you. What do you do?’ It’s certainly a game that lends itself to lots of situations and participants and creates plenty of entertaining exchanges at the same time. Joining the Big Potato Club offers exclusive benefits like being the first to hear about new games, obtaining free replacements, and participating in weekly prize draws.

Summary                                                                                                     

• Simple rules

• Fun and entertaining questions

• Provides great social experience by encouraging players to think collectively and aim for the same answers

• Fun for most ages

• Fast-paced gameplay

Final Verdict

Herd Mentality is beautifully simplistic and really fun. It’s not hard at all to understand why it’s gone on to sell over one million copies. Like most party games, it keeps the rules and gameplay mechanics to a minimum and instead focuses on the social experience people will have when playing the game. The questions that are included will certainly create a lively debate at the gaming table, and with a lot of them being opinion-based, it means that younger players won’t be at a disadvantage. Unlike some trivia games that are based purely on knowledge, this game offers lots of unique questions most players can answer without being the odd one out. By putting its own spin on the classic trivia game formula, Herd Mentality has managed to provide a funny, entertaining, and overall enjoyable party game where the first player to accumulate eight cows wins.

We recommend this as one of our Best Board Games for 13 year olds. Check out that article for more recommendations.

Or Check out our list of the Best Party Games for other similar games.

If You Liked This:

If you enjoyed moving with the herd with this party game, check out our list of the best party games. Additionally, here are some similar games we’re sure you’ll enjoy:

Wits and Wagers: Another game where you don’t need to know every answer, but what you think the right answer will be. Everyone answers an obscure question as best they can and then bets on the answer that they think is correct, even if it isn’t theirs! Whoever provides the closest answer is the winner, with the players betting on that answer scoring points too.

Colorbrain: Can you name all the different colored skittles? Or the colors that make up the Italian flag? In this game, players answer hundreds of different color related questions by using their eleven color cards. Players score if they guess correctly and other players don’t. Full review of Colorbrain Here.

Blockbuster: A movie trivia game to test your cinematic knowledge. Battle it out with other players in multiple styles of play: name a specific type of movie based on a theme or guess a movie whilst it’s being acted out, quoted, or associated with a single word.

What Do You Meme? Can you out-meme your friends IRL? A party card game for the social media generation. Match photos with captions to complete the meme with the player that created the funniest combo scoring points.

Sounds Fishy:  A trivia game where it’s not just about not knowing the right answers, but spotting the fake ones too. Full of strange questions and stranger answers, points are earned by eliminating fake answers written by other players. If players accidentally eliminate the correct answer though they’ll lose points.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)