What will you do with your 3 Wishes?

3 Wishes card game — What will you wish for?

Do you ever wish you had a wish-granting genie?

I’m sure we’ve all let ourselves get carried away with imagining a genie magically appearing and granting us 3 wishes.

What would we wish for?

Would it be fame and fortune?

Or would you go straight for world peace?

In the recently released card game, 3 Wishes, by Passport Game Studios you may have a chance to get all 3.

How to play 3 Wishes

3 Wishes is a simple card game with only 18 cards in the deck.

There are 3 different types of wish cards that players are trying to get in front of them. The 3 different types of wishes are Superpower (blue), Gift (yellow), and World Harmony (pink).

And players will spend the game switching cards around between players and the available cards in the center as they work to collect the right mix of cards for themselves.

The player who can end the game with 1 of each type of wish card wins the game.

Set up

The game set up in 3 Wishes is super simple.

Each player is dealt 3 cards face down in a row in front of them. Then 2 additional cards are set face down in the center of the table.

If playing with less than 5 players, some of the cards will be removed before play begins.

Regardless of the number of players, one card will be randomly removed from the game before cards are dealt to each player. That way there will always be some mystery about which cards are in play.

Before play begins, each player can look at one of their cards and then place it face down again.

Player Turns

On a player’s turn they must perform 2 of the possible actions.

Peek: Look at any card in front of any player or in the center.
Switch: Switch the position of any two cards on the table.
Shuffle: Shuffle the three cards in front of you, put them back face down, and then look at one of them.
Declare the End of Game: If taken, this can be the only action performed on a player’s turn. Meaning they can not take one of the actions first and then declare the end of the game. Also, this action can only be taken from the 4th round on.

That’s all there is to it. Player just keep taking turns looking at cards and switching them around until one player declares the end of the game.

End of Game

Once a player declares the end of the game, all players reveal the cards in front of them. If a player has one of each type (Superpower, Gift, World Harmony), they score points equal the the total value on their cards (also taking into account any special powers of the cards).

If a player doesn’t have one of each type, they don’t get any points.

The player with the most points wins the game.

Can the whole family enjoy playing 3 Wishes?

As you can see, 3 Wishes is a super simple card game to play. Which means it’s also easy to introduce to players of all ages.

In fact, it will likely most appeal to younger players.

Kids will be attracted by the colorful and cartoony artwork on the cards as well as the simple game play. And to play the game, they don’t really even need to be able to read or recognize numbers.

Each card lists what the wish is at the bottom of the card. However, the artwork on the card is so easily understood, that the description at the bottom kind of gets ignored anyway.

And yes, the numbers on the cards can make a difference at the end of the game, but mostly players are just looking at the color of cards in front of them, not the value.

That’s because the value only really matters if more than one person ends the game with one of each type of card — which has been a rarity in the games we’ve played.

In most games we’ve played, only one player ends up with the right combo of cards in front of them.

It’s a great hidden information game for kids that helps them develop their memory skills as well as a bit of trickery by switching cards around.

But will this card game also appeal to teenagers and adults?

Unfortunately, only if they’re playing with kids.

Even though we’ve played 3 Wishes with just teenagers and adults, one game has seemed to be enough for them.

While the games have involved a lot of laughter because of messing around with each other’s cards, they haven’t clamored to play it again.

After all, there’s definitely fun to be had in messing around with each other’s cards. But it wasn’t enough to sustain adults for multiple plays.

There are plenty of light and quick, hidden information card games that adults will be driven to play over and over again. But 3 Wishes isn’t one of them.

Instead, the sweet spot for 3 Wishes is with the kids. It’s a good game for introducing kids to hidden information games.

How does 3 Wishes score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

Since our kids are all teenagers now, 3 Wishes comes in low on our “let’s play again” game meter.

Like I mentioned above, they love messing with each other’s cards by switching things all around as often as they can. But 3 Wishes isn’t a card game they’ve asked for repeated plays of.

Instead, we’re going to be the wish-granting genie and give 3 Wishes as a gift to our friends who have younger kids that will more fully enjoy the game.

If you’ve got young kids in your family that you’d like to introduce to hidden information games, you may want to pick up a copy of 3 Wishes.