Emojinks! Board Game: Rules for How to Play

Objective

The objective of Emojinks! is to find more matching emojis between cards than the other players.

Setup

The players should decide whether they want to use the beginner or advanced side of the cards. If you want to use the beginner’s side, make sure the purple border side is face up. For the advanced game the yellow border side should be face up.
The players need to decide which of the two games that they will play.

Game One

If the players choose to play game one, you will stack all of the cards in a pile in the middle of the table with your preferred side face up (purple – beginner, yellow – advanced).

One player takes two cards from the pile and places them in the middle of the table. The cards should be placed where all of the players can see them.

Flipping over two cards — Two cards have been flipped over. The players will have to try and find the image which is on both cards. For these two cards it is the two laughing faces.

At the same time all of the players will look at the two cards on the table. Each set of cards will have one emoji that is on both cards. The players will race to spot the matching emoji before the other players. When you find the matching pair, you will tell the other players what symbol is matched. It usually is a good idea to also point it out to the other players as well.

If the player did find a match, they will take both cards and set them in their own personal score pile. Two new cards are then drawn and the players will once again try to find the match.

Finding a match — For these two cards the players race to find the match between the two cards. The first player to notice that there is a palm tree on both cards, gets to take both cards.

The instructions don’t mention what happens if a player thinks they found the match, but they didn’t.

Should two players find the match at the same time, both center cards are returned to the bottom of the deck.

The game ends as soon as all of the cards are collected. The players count up how many they collected during the game. The player that collected the most cards wins the game.

Winning Emojinks — At the end of the game the players collected these cards. The players collected the following cards: 18, 16, 12, and 10. The top player collected the most cards so they have won the game.

Special Emojis

There are a few special emojis in the game that have a special action when a player matches them.

Matching fingers — For these two cards the matching image is the hand showing four fingers.

Should a player match two hands showing the same number of fingers that are pointed upwards, count up the number of fingers. All of the players that didn’t find the match have to return the corresponding number of cards they previously collected to the draw pile. For example the image above has two hands showing four fingers. The person who finds the match takes the two matching cards, and the rest of the players have to return four cards to the draw pile. This applies to all of these emojis from two to five fingers.

Matching tongue stuck out — Both of these cards show the emoji with its tongue stuck out.

When a player finds a pair of the emoji with its tongue stuck out that is winking, they will take the two cards in the middle of the table. They also get to take ten cards previously acquired by the other players. They can take all of the cards from one player, or they can take a combination from several players that add up to ten.

Matching emojis holding cards in hand — These two cards have the boy holding three cards in their hand. This is the matching image.

Some of the cards have an emoji of a boy holding cards in their hand. If you find the emoji with the boy holding the same number of cards on both middle cards, you have found a match. The player that found the match takes the two cards from the middle of the table. They will also get to take cards from each of the other players equal to the number of cards pictured on the emoji. For example in the picture above the boy is holding three cards. The player who found the match gets to take three cards previously acquired by each of the players.

Should a player ever have to return or give cards to another player and they don’t have enough, they only give what cards they currently have. They do not have to give up future cards for not having enough cards to pay what they owe.

Game Two

Give all of the players the same number of cards to start the game. Players should place their cards in a stack so they can see the side of the cards that the players have chosen to use (purple – beginner, yellow – advanced).

Each player takes the top card from their stack of cards and places it on the table. Each card should be played so the side that the players are using is face up.

All of the players will then play at the same time. You will look at the top card on your stack and look for an emoji that matches one of the cards that are face up in the middle of the table. When you find a matching emoji, place the card on top of the corresponding card in the middle of the table. You will now have a new card that you will need to match.

Game two in Emojinks — One of the player’s pile is at the bottom of the image. They need to find a match for their top card with one of the four cards in the middle of the table. Their top card has matches with the cards as follows: top left – hand with four fingers, top right – surfer, bottom left – the face with the straight line mouth, and bottom right – face with multiple eyebrows. When the player finds one of these matches, they will place their card on top of the corresponding card.

The special matches mentioned in game one (hands, face with tongue stuck out, boy holding cards) do not have any special effect in game two. When you match these symbols, you do not take any special action.

The first player to get rid of all of their cards wins Emojinks!.

Emojinks! FAQ

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

57 cards
Instructions

Year: 2018 | Publisher: Toyrific

Genres: Family, Matching, Speed

Ages: 5+ | Number of Players: 2+ | Length of Game: 5-10 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.