I remember watching Family Feud when I was growing up. Just having watched it might not age me, but I really adored Richard Dawson as the host – and that probably does age me. When the families won they’d jump up and down and scream – or throw themselves at Richard Dawson for kisses. Those were good times. It was so much fun watching the families struggle to get the right answer. Sometimes they’d come up with the weirdest things, and I’d think, “I’d never say something that stupid.” Apparently when you’re playing the game under a time limit, actually you will say something that stupid, but enough about me.One of the features of the game is that you can design your own five member family. If you’ve played one of the ‘Sims’ games, you don’t have anything like that level of customization, but you can do enough to make your family look different than the other families. There are various accessories you can use (like glasses) and as you win games and score points, you can potentially unlock additional accessories for decorating your family.
If you’ve watched Family Feud at any point in the past, the game will be very familiar. If you’ve never seen Family Feud on television, here are the basics of the game. Two families go head to head answering questions where their answers are compared to the most popular answers of 100 people polled the same question. The family that can answer the most questions successfully goes onto the final round and has a chance to win the big money.
You are in control of five family members. You can either customize and name a family or go with a random family. Whichever way you go doesn’t really matter. It’s still you answering all of the questions so the look of the family members is purely cosmetic. You are given a category, like “Vegetables People Grow in their Backyards”. In theory 100 people have been polled on this question and a random amount of the top answers are hidden on the game board. You get to make a guess as to the answer. If your answer is on the board, you win points according to how many people picked the same answer. If your guess isn’t on the board, you get a strike. Get three strikes and you’re out of that question. In the TV version, three strikes means the other family gets a chance to answer the question. If they get a correct answer, they get their points plus all of the points you’d already earned for that question. Ouch.
There are three basic modes of play in Family Feud. You can play the standard game which is against another family, the quick game which is just you versus the ‘survey says’ answers, and finally there’s an online play mode. With standard or quick play you also get to the pick the set you want to use. I don’t recognize Set 1. Set 5 is the one I remember – but it’s missing Richard Dawson.
During standard play you get to select either a one or two player game. I suppose in theory you could have a buddy over and play head to head with him. I tried the one player game. I can either pick a family I made or go with a random family. For the other computer-controlled family, I get to set their skill level. My options were beginner, average and expert. The beginner level makes the opposing family timid and not particularly bright. Even when they have a chance to steal the game (because you’ve had your three strikes) they usually pass. I am sad to admit that my only success was against the other family in beginner mode. The average skill level family was fast and smart. They whipped my butt on the few games I tried against them. I confess that I did not try the expert level family. The thought of facing them down makes me break out in a cold sweat.
In standard play, you start the game with the face off – your first family member against their first family member. The host poses the question. Whoever hits their buzzer the fastest gets to answer first. If you answer first and get the number one answer, it’s up to you to pass or play. I always choose play. If your answer isn’t number one, the opponent gets a chance to try for a more popular answer. If the person beats your answer, it’s up to them to play or pass. If they go first and don’t get the highest answer, you have your own chance to take the play back from them. The whole process goes much faster than the length of time it takes to explain it.
Let’s say you’ve won the face off and decide to play. The question will be asked to each family member in turn. You’ll see the family member pondering and they have a few seconds of thinking time, and then it’s time to type in their answer. If it’s correct, the answer appears on the board with the corresponding number of points. If the answer is wrong, there’s a buzzer and your side gets a strike. If you get three strikes, the other family gets a chance to steal your points. They only need one correct answer to do this. The first family to achieve 300 points gets to go on to the Fast Money round and a chance to win $20,000 virtual dollars.
I did try the quick mode a few times. There isn’t another family so there’s no face off or cuts to them pondering questions or celebrating their victories. You try to earn as many points as you can by guessing the most popular answers. Depending on how you do, you can potentially unlock more accessories for your family or even different sets (from different eras of the show) to play on.
I tried online play once. I successfully connected to their network, but there did not appear to be anyone else online to play with. Your mileage may vary.
I did run into a few oddities during play.
The computer is not always a good interpreter of what you’re trying to say. I know in the show that if someone answers with a word that means the same thing as the actual word on the survey, they would get credit for it. That was not my experience with the game.
Some of the interpretations of what I typed came out downright weird. One question was “Things you find under your sofa cushion”. My first guess was ‘change’ which won the face off and got me the game. One of my other guesses was ‘lint’. I got the ding for being correct, and it showed my answer as ‘pen’. Huh? I ended up with three strikes and the computer family got their turn. For the curious, the third answer on the board was ‘food’. Ewwww. Another topic was ‘Vegetables People Grow in their Backyards’. The number one answer for this category was ‘tomato’. I have a small problem with this – in that a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable.
Finally, there were a few graphics anomalies. Sometimes I would hear the host talking but his mouth wouldn’t be moving. Sometimes his mouth would be moving but I wouldn’t hear anything. There was a super-weird thing going on with arms and wrists. The families move around a bit as they consult with each other or celebrate a victory. Sometimes as they’d move an arm it would twist into a weird angular shape, or a wrist would get pencil thin but with a giant ‘man-hand’ attached to it.
Overall I would say that Family Feud the game is a good representation of Family Feud the game show, but with a few caveats as listed above. I think it has the potential to be a fun party game in two player mode where you would actually have other people to confer with and friends to compete against. Ultimately my biggest complaint though – where the heck is Richard Dawson!?
I’m a working mom – married with one child. My daughter is 7 and she has autism. Everything else in my life moves around this core. Online gaming has been a big part of my social life over the last several years due to the difficulty of going out and about. I have to say that my daughter Alissa is awesome at computer games. She has skills with electronics that amaze me. When I get away from the computer, I like doing craft projects (knitting, crocheting, sewing, painting, quilling, whatever sounds fun) and reading. I mainly read suspense these days but I have a pretty eclectic collection and a library of about 6000 books. I’ve been using a computer since grade school – I started with an Apple IIe and have upgraded considerably and many times since then. I played Dungeons and Dragons for at least a few decades. I met and married my husband through gaming. He was my DM. I stopped tabletop gaming more from lack of time than anything. It’s easier to meet and game with friends online than it is to coordinate real life schedules around my daughter’s needs.
