Friday Filler: Ted Lasso Party Game

Ted Lasso is facing a big challenge. As an American Football coach recently appointed as manager of AFC Richmond, he has to get both the staff and the players of this soccer—sorry, football team—to ‘Believe to Believe’, despite his lack of knowledge and experience, and so win games. However, apart from Coach Lasso and his best friend, Coach Beard, nobody believes that Ted will succeed and while they are busy believing that, everybody is in need of something. Whether its Coaching, Quality Time, Jokes, or even Inspirational Speeches, Ted Lasso can give them all. And if that does not work, there is always that pink box of perfect biscuits which always makes things right. This then, is the set-up for Ted Lasso Party Game, a game based on the Apple+ comedy series, designed for two to six players, aged ten and up, which can be played in twenty minutes. Notably, it is a co-operative game played in four, very short rounds, and it comes with its own Timer App (although it is very noisy). It is designed by Prospero Hall and published by Funko Games.

The aim of the Ted Lasso Party Game is to score forty-five Morale or more. Do this and the players win. Otherwise, they lose. To do this, the players take it in turns to play Believe Cards on the Trouble Tiles belonging to the various Character Cards. This will score Morale. Believe Cards must also be used to the Coaches to the various Location Mats and to gain bonus Morale if there is nothing else to spend them on!

Ted Lasso Party Game is very well appointed. It includes a football-shaped Game Board, five Location Mats, two Coach pieces, twelve Event Cards, fourteen Character Cards, fifty-four Believe Cards, thirty-two Trouble Tiles, a Biscuit Box, a Football Die, a Scoring Clip, a Reference Card, and a Rules Booklet. The Game Board has spaces for the Event Cards, the Self-Care section, and the Move a Coach option. The Location Mats consist of Rebecca’s Office, Coach’s Office, the Locker Room, the Trainer Pitch, and the Crown & Anchor pub. Each has space for a Character Card and multiple Trouble Tiles and a Coach Piece. The two Coach Pieces consist of Coach Lasso and Coach Beard. Event Cards—of which four are drawn in game, provide a random event at the start of each round, such as ‘Silent Treatment’, which means that the players cannot talk that round or ‘Elaborate Set Pieces’ which if ‘Coaching’ Believe Cards are played on it, will score the players more Morale.

The various Character Cards have a special condition and a bonus to Morale. Most have a score, whilst the footballers have Football symbols indicating that the Morale bonus is rolled randomly on the Football Die. For example, ‘Rebecca Welton’, scores seven Morale and allows the use of the Biscuits Trouble Tiles to remove whole Trouble Tiles. The Believe Cards come in five colours, four of which correspond to the Trouble Tiles. The yellow Coaching Believe Cards deal with Characters who are Sceptical; the red Quality Time Believe Cards deal with Characters who are Angry; the blue Jokes Believe Cards deal with Characters who are Sad; and the purple Inspirational Believe Cards deal with Characters who are Insecure. The fifth Believe Card type is pink and are Biscuits, which act as a Wild Card. The thirty-two Trouble Tiles are each marked with two emojis whose colours correspond to the Believe Cards.

There is a fantastic sense of verisimilitude to Ted Lasso Party Game as it draws heavily from the television series. Thus, the Biscuit Box, which is pink, is used to store the Trouble Tiles and looks like the box which Ted Lasso delivers biscuits to Rebecca Welton every day; the Football Die is a four-sided die shaped like a football; and the base box is designed as a football stadium. The Believe Cards also have quotes from the television series.

Set-up is simple. Four Events cards are drawn and placed on the Game Board and, a random Character Card is placed on each of five Location Mats as are a number of Trouble Tiles as indicated on each Location Mat. The Believe Cards are shuffled and dealt out to the players. This is done at the start of each round, which also includes turning over an Event Card. The players are allowed to look at the combinations of the Character Cards and the Location Mats and are free to discuss plans for the round.

Each round lasts two minutes and the players act in turn. On his turn, a player plays as many Believe Cards as possible of one colour from his hand that he needs too. This is done to undertake three actions. These are ‘Be Kind’, ‘Move a Coach’, and ‘Self-Care’. If a Coach is on a Location Mat, a player can be ‘Be Kind’ and play Believe Cards to the Location to counter the emojis on the Trouble Tiles. A Believe Card can be discarded to the Move a Coach space on the Game Board to move a Coach from one Location Mat to another. ‘Self-Care’ lets a player discard cards to the Self-Care space on the Game Board. Once a player has played all of the Believe Cards, either that he can, his turn is over. Play proceeds like this until everyone has played all of their Believe Cards over multiple turns or the two-minute timer runs out.

At the end of the round, for every five Believe Cards in the Self-Care, the players can remove a single Trouble Tile from any Location Mat. Also, at the end of the round, any Trouble Tiles with matching Believe Cards at the Location Mat are removed. If all of the Trouble Tiles are removed from a Character Card on a Location Mat, he is removed and the players are awarded the Morale bonus—a simple number unless rolled for the Footballers. A new Character Card is added for the next round. Morale will be lost if the timer goes off and the players still have the Believe Cards in their hands.

Play of the Ted Lasso Party Game is frenetic as the players scramble from turn to turn to play all of their Believe Cards to their best advantage. Apart from this pace, it plays a great deal like any other co-operative game. There is some variability to the game in that there are fourteen Character Cards and not all of them are going to come out during play and the combination of Trouble Tiles on a Location Mat is rarely going to be the same. As with any co-operative game there is the danger of play being dominated by an ‘alpha’ player, though the frenetic pace of the game does negate that to some extent. The game does require some planning on the part of the players since they need to decide what Believe Cards they are going to play—and where, since with two minutes of play per round, there is insufficient time for planning. That said, a player will likely be forced to rethink his action if another player does something unexpected or a Coach Piece cannot be moved.

However, there is not a lot of variability and the game play does not really change. Consequently, there is not a lot of depth to the Ted Lasso Party Game and not a lot of replayability either. So, it is going to appeal more to fans of the television series than hobbyist board game players. Yet saying that, the game play is challenging for the casual player and the fact that it is a co-operative game is going to be challenging for some players. The fact that it is a co-operative game and that it actually has a lot of components suggests that it is not, as the title of the game suggests, a ‘party’ game, although the theme and speed of play suggests that it might be. Lastly, that speed of play does hinder the enjoyment of the game’s theme—the game is too fast to read the quotes on the Believe Cards, for example, in play.

Physically, the Ted Lasso Party Game is a really great looking game. Photographs are actually used of the cast from the series, except for Coach Lasso and Coach Beard. Otherwise, everything is themed very much around the television series. Lastly, the game app is more intrusive than useful.

The Ted Lasso Party Game is another good design from Prospero Hall which fits the theme of the source material. It is only a very light game though and only hardcore fans of Ted Lasso are likely to want to keep playing after a few plays.

1998: Cranium

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

It is surprising to realise that Cranium is twenty-five years old. Originally published by Cranium, Inc. via Amazon and Starbucks—of all places!—‘The Game for Your Whole Brain’ was subsequently published by Hasbro, Inc. and sold everywhere. To celebrate its silver anniversary, its current publisher, Funko Games has released the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition, which combines its sketching, acting, humming, sculpting, picture-puzzling, and word unscrambling game into a very attractive and sturdy package. Designed for four players aged twelve and up, it still is what it always was—a party package of games, which asks the players to guess answers based on an image drawn on a card, or from a sound or a song, answer trivia questions, solve word or picture puzzles, and infamously, sculpt an object which hopefully will be the clue to what is on the card. So, one part Pictionary, one-part Trivial Pursuit, one-part Scrabble, one-part Charades. The challenges in Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition can be divided into four categories—red Fact & Picture Challenges, yellow Word & Letter Puzzles, red Drawing & Sculpting, and green Acting & Sound Effects—and with a grand total of eighteen specific challenges divided between the four, there is always something new and interesting for the players to do. And given the silliness of some of the tasks, laugh at them as well.

What strikes you first about the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is how it is packaged. It comes as a fat disc or case. The top half is purple, the lower half white, and with an undulating edge to the top and bottom of the case, what the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition actually looks like is a cake. In fact, a celebratory cake with purple icing on the top! What strikes you second about the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is the fact that everything is contained within the case. This includes challenge cards, the mini-white boards and their dry-erase pens, the timer, the team pawns, the counters, the movement die, and of course, the pot of ‘Cranium Clay’ used for the sculpture challenge. What strikes you third about the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is the movement die. It is a ten-sided die, but marked with five colours—twice. If you are an experienced gamer, then you will have seen this in the last twenty-five years, but for the casual gamer, it could be a first.

At the start of the game, the players divide into two teams. The blue team and the orange team. Each team has a mover in a corresponding colour. Everything is removed from the case in readiness for play and one of the game’s two decks is shuffled and placed in the slot in the middle of the case. This is where the cards are drawn from, turn to turn. Each team receives a reference sheet, which explains all eighteen categories, and a set of four Bonus Coins. There are two ‘Reroll’ coins, a ‘Move +1’ coin, and a ‘Move +2’ coin. The first two allow the die to be rerolled, whereas the other two grant a bonus to movement if a challenge is successful. All four can only be used once per game and are dropped into the slot atop the case when used. On a turn, each team will roll the die. This determines the category or colour of challenge they will perform. The opposing team will draw a card and set the challenge for the team based on the colour on the die. If the current team rolled purple, it can choose any colour. The team can also choose whether or not to use a ‘Bonus Coin’. Once the challenge is set and the timer readied, the player doing the challenge has two minutes to complete it and for the rest of the team to get it right from the clues provided by the player. Some challenges given are marked as ‘ALL PLAY’ in which case a player on both teams attempts it and the first team to get it right wins. When a team gets a challenge right, its Mover is moved round the track on the case to the next space matching the colour of the challenge it just completed. The game is won by the team which gets its Lover back round the track to the starting space.

In terms of game play then, the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is all about the challenges. Each card has one challenge from each category—Fact & Picture Challenges, Word & Letter Puzzles, Drawing & Sculpting, and Acting & Sound Effects—with corresponding answers on the back. For example, a card could have the ‘Soundstage’ challenge of the player having to perform ‘Glassblowing’ using sounds and gestures the rest of the team identify it correctly; identity the ‘Odd Couple’ or two items which do not belong on a list from ‘Chupacabra/Seattle Kraken/Jersey Devil/Beast of Exmoor/Cleveland Monsters’; ‘Jargonaut’ or choose the word which matches the definition for ‘The vapour line behind a high-flying plane’ from ‘Contrail, Delta wave, Phytoplasma, or Gasconade’; and in ‘Sensosketch’, the player must draw a ‘Katana’ with his eyes closed and the rest of the team identify it correctly from the drawing.

The fun of the game is in these challenges. And the fun in the challenges is in getting them wrong as much as you do right. Especially the more physical challenges, whether that is drawing or sculpting or performing. This is what will make everyone laugh as much as groan with frustration. The range of challenges provides lots of variety and that variety will appeal to a wider age group, young and old. Unfortunately, there is a problem with the Fact & Picture Challenges category in that the trivia questions are based on American knowledge rather than general knowledge. So, anyone outside of the USA is going to have a harder time with the category.

Physically, the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is very sturdily and attractively presented. Everything packs into the solid, very cake-like case, which looks good on the table. The cards are on thick stock, the Cranium Clay is malleable, and both the case and the Mover pieces are solid plastic.

All right, so the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is not a gamer’s game. It is too random, too simple, no real game play, no real rules or tactics or strategy. Which is true. In fact, the only tactic might be to use the purple result on the die to choose a colour and thus a category of challenge the team thinks it has a chance of succeeding at and move further than a random roll might have allowed. Yet despite these issues, every gamer needs a party game, a game that he can bring out and play with friends or family who do not ordinarily play games, especially at certain times of the year. Cranium is challenging in ways that friends and family will understand and silly and fun that they can enjoy playing it. Even a gamer can enjoy it for those reasons. Think of it as a palette cleanser, played very, very occasionally between more complex and demanding games.

The Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is a great version of the classic party game. It looks good on the table, its team play encourages co-operation, and it plays well with family and friends, offering them a wide variety of tasks and challenges that are often fun and silly. Every gaming collection needs a party game and if that party game is Cranium, then the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is the version to have.

Bluff to Market

A royal visit is a big boost to any city and Nottingham is no exception. The forthcoming visit of Prince John has swelled the city’s population and thus the size of the potential purses to spend at the city’s market. With the increased demand for goods, merchants from far and wide have an opportunity to make big profits by shipping goods in, or really making big profits by smuggling illegal goods in! Unfortunately, the Sheriff of Nottingham wants to be seen to be doing his job—and that includes inspecting all of the goods coming into his city. If a merchant is found to be smuggling, then the Sheriff will definitely fine him and confiscate the smuggled goods, that is, unless the merchant bribes the Sheriff first!

This is the set-up for Sheriff of Nottingham, a game published by Arcane Wonders. It is a game of bluff, deduction, and trickery in which the players take turns being the Sheriff whilst the others are merchants shipping their goods past the Sheriff. Each turn a player fills a sack with goods and then declares how many and the type of goods that he has in a sack. The Sheriff can only guess at what might be in the sack. He has the right to inspect every sack for illegal goods. If he discovers any, the merchant is fined; if none are found, then the Sheriff must compensate the merchant!

Winner of the 2015 Origins Award for Best Board Game, Sheriff of Nottingham is designed for three to five players, aged thirteen and up. It primarily consists of two-hundred-and-sixteen goods cards, most of which are green and represent legal goods—apples, cheese, bread, and chicken. The rest are red and represent illegal goods—pepper, mead, silk, and crossbows! In addition, there are Royal Goods—they are illegal and marked with a banner and worth extra if a merchant successfully smuggles them past the Sheriff. The Royal Goods are an extra option not used in the base game. Each goods card is marked with two numbers, one that represents the reward gained at game’s end if it gets to a merchant’s Stand, the other being the fine paid if the goods card is confiscated or the Sheriff inspects legitimate goods.

Besides the cards, there are over a hundred coins in various denominations, five Merchant Stand and Merchant Bags in matching colours, the Sheriff marker, and the rulebook. Each Stand illustrates a player’s merchant as well as giving the game order and a place to store successfully shipped goods. the Sheriff marker is used to indicate which player is currently the Sheriff.

All of the components are of a nice quality. The cards look good and feel good in the hand; the money and Stand are of thick card; and the rule book is clearly written. The artwork is excellent, especially the illustrations of the Sheriff and the merchants. A nice touch is that the inner tray holding the game’s components can be taken out of the box and used to arrange them during play.

At game’s start, each player receives fifty gold and six Goods cards as well as a matching Merchant Stand and Merchant Bag. Once the cards have been thoroughly shuffled—and they do need a good shuffle—two discard piles of face-up cards are formed of five Goods each are formed either side of the deck. One player is the starting Sheriff.

Each turn consists of five Phases—Market, Load Merchant Bag, Declaration, Inspection, and End of the Round. All of the players must complete a Phase before moving onto the next and the Sheriff is only involved the last three Phases. In the Market Phase, the players can discard up to five Goods and then draw back up to six. These new Goods can be drawn from the draw pile or either discard pile. Drawing from a discard pile means that a player will have some idea as to what he might draw, but it also gives the Sheriff a hint as to what a merchant has in his hand.

In the Load Merchant Bag, a merchant loads his Merchant Bag with between one and five Goods, then snaps the bag closed. These are the Goods that a merchant wants to take to market. In the Declaration Phase, a merchant states aloud what is in his bag, but can only say the contents consist of Legal Goods, one type of Goods, and how many. For example, “My bag contains three Apples.” This of course could be true, but it might also be a lie. Instead the bag might contain illegal Goods or legal Goods different to those declared.

In the Inspection Phase, the Sheriff is free to open any or all of the merchants’ bags. Before that happens though, the Sheriff is free to demur and the merchants are free to bribe the Sheriff. They can offer him money or Goods from their Stands or their Merchant’s Bag—be they legal or illegal. They can persuade him to open the bag of another Merchant. The Sheriff is free to accept these bribes, negotiate for more, but once he opens a bag or hands it back to its merchant, then no more bribes can be made. The results are final. In the End of the Round Phase, fines are paid if illegal Goods have been found or legal Goods unnecessarily inspected.

Then the role of Sheriff passes to next player and another turn begins. This continues until each player has been Sheriff twice—or three times in a three-player game—and everyone totals up their money and the value of the Goods they successfully shipped. The two players who shipped the most of a Good are crowned the King and Queen of Cheese (or Apples or Bread or…) and score bonus Gold. The merchant with the most money is the winner.

Sheriff of Nottingham is not though, a board game. Its emphasis on social interaction—negotiation, bribery, and bluff—make it a party game. The quality of the cards and the fun of snapping the bags open also give the game a pleasing physicality. Its easy rules and engaging theme also make it an easy game to introduce to and play with non-gamers. This also means that its replay value is not as high and much of the game’s fun depends on who you play with and the game is not as satisfying to play with three players as it is with four or five. Another issue is that game can be won by playing it entirely safe, by not having to smuggle goods past the Sheriff or indeed, bribing the Sheriff and this runs counter to the point of the game. This can be a bit disappointing even as you are bluffing the Sheriff into believing that you cannot be smuggling illegal or mixed goods and forcing him to check your bag and take the consequences.

If you are looking for a well designed, fun party game, then Sheriff of Nottingham is a good choice. It is satisfyingly simple and engaging, perfectly suited to the non-gamer and the gamer looking for a lighter diversion.

Cards Against Culture

The Metagame looks a lot like Cards Against Humanity. It comes in a similar sized box, it contains lots of cards, and it is a social game. There is a good reason for this. An early version of The Metagame was played by the designers of Cards Against Humanity and so inspired them to bring out their very popular game. There the comparisons end for The Metagame is very different in many ways to Cards Against Humanity. First, its subject matter eschews the tastelessness and sheer indecency of Cards Against Humanity, taking as its subject matter culture and pop culture and getting us to express our opinions about them. Second, it includes not one game, but six! Some are designed for two players, some for three players, some for three or more, some for between three and seven, some for five or more, and some for between five and thirty-three—or more! Third, it comes in a big white box, not a big black box.

Published by Local No. 12, The Metagame consists of three hundred cards—of which one hundred are Opinion cards and two hundred are Culture cards. The Opinion cards ask questions like “Which would Freud want?” and “Which is the most useful on a desert island?” or gives statements such as “The Gold Standard for BLANK” and “More Myth Than Fact”. The Culture cards are white, nicely illustrated, and come with a short paragraph of descriptive text and range from Enron, Brie Cheese, and World of Warcraft to The Vagina Monologues, Riverdance, and Romeo and Juliet. Notably, all of the Culture cards include a date. The rules come on several pieces of stiff card and are succinctly written with no rules card being longer than four sides long.

‘Matchmakers’, designed for three or more players is the recommended starting game for The Metagame. Each player begins play with a single Opinion card paced face up in front of them as well as a hand of four Culture cards. Then everyone puts all of their Culture cards face down next to the Opinion cards that they think are good matches, though not next to their own Opinion cards of course. Each player picks up the Culture cards in front of them and shuffles them before choosing the one he thinks best matches his Opinion card. The player who played the Culture card receives it back along with the Opinion card and all Culture cards played on it. After three rounds the player with the most cards wins. There is nothing to stop a player playing multiple cards on an Opinion card and so can try to stack the match in his favour. ‘Matchmakers’ is the nearest game to Cards Against Humanity, but of course lacks its indecency. 

Designed for two or more players, ‘History 101’ is the simplest game. It starts with a Culture card being placed face up on the table. This is the starting point for the timeline. Then on each player’s turn, the player to his left draws a card and reads it aloud without mentioning any dates. He can also be shown the card—with any dates kept hidden. The player whose turn it is has to decide where it goes on the timeline. If successful, the Culture card is added to the timeline, but if not the player has to keep card. If a player accrues three Culture cards, he is eliminated. The last un-eliminated player is winner.  ‘History 101’ is a simple general knowledge, one that nicely gets more complex as more cards are added to the timeline.

‘Head to Head’ is a three-player game. Two of the players each start with stack seven Culture cards, whilst the third, known as the Critic, begins with seven Opinion cards. The Critic begins placing the Opinion cards in a column, face up, and as he does, the two players draw their Culture cards and place them beside the Opinion card that they think is the most appropriate. A player is free to move his Culture cards to a more appropriate Opinion card if he wants, but ‘Head to Head’ is is played as a race  with each player holding a hand behind his back! As soon as one player has played all of his Culture cards, the round ends, the slower player only being allowed to play six of his cards. The Critic then collects each Opinion card and the Culture cards beside it, mixing them up and then deciding on the winner, who is awarded that Opinion card. Play continues until everyone has been the Critic and at the end of the three round, the player with the most Opinion cards wins. ‘Head to Head’  is stripped down, speed version of ‘Matchmakers’ that is fast and fun.

Designed for three to seven players, ‘Metaquilt’ is a tile laying game in which the Culture cards have to ‘match’ or answer the questions on the Opinion cards they are placed next to and vice versa for the Opinion cards. Each player begins with five Opinion cards and five Culture cards, the aim being to successfully play their last card—of either type. When a card is played, if another player thinks that he has a better card, then he can challenge the first player. Both players have an opportunity to debate the suitability of their cards, but the winner is decided by the vote of the other players. The winner gets to add his card to the ‘Metaquilt’, the loser gets to draw a new card—or two cards if the challenger lost. Whomever gets to play their card can reduce their hand by the number of cards their newly added card is adjacent to. In this way, the game speeds up as more cards have been played. Overall, ‘Metaquilt’ is a neat spin on the tile laying game.

‘Debate Club’ is a game for five or more players. One player is the Critic, who receives three Opinion cards, whilst everyone else is given five Culture cards. Each round, the Critic reads out one of his Opinion cards and each of the players selects the Culture card that best matches the Opinion card. In turn, they reveal their Culture card and explain why they think it matches in sixty seconds. Once everyone has had a chance, the Critic chooses the best and worst cards. The player with the best card draws a new card and continues onto the next round, but the player with the worst card discards all of his cards and becomes a Critic! Play continues from round to round until the last remaining player wins. ‘Debate Club’ feels like another game, but then there is a lot of debating style games. Thankfully there are plenty of cards in The Metagame to keep this reasonably fresh.

Finally, ‘Massively Multiplayer Metagame’ is the big game, designed for five or more players, up to thirty-three or more. Everyone starts with six Culture cards and three Opinion cards. Their aim is to win debates and collect the most Culture cards. At any time, anyone can instigate a debate by revealing an Opinion card and saying, “DEBATE THIS!” The first two players to show a Culture card debate the Opinion card with the instigator moderating. Anyone nearby can vote on the debate. The winner gets to keep the loser’s Culture card. Play continues until an agreed time is up or the event—‘Massively Multiplayer Metagame’ is designed to be played over dinner, at parties, or at conferences—has ended, at which time, the player with the most Culture cards is the winner.

Two expansion packs—Film 101 and Science Fiction—previously only available to backers of the Kickstarter are now available. Each includes forty Culture cards and fourteen Discussion cards and is a fun addition to the game, especially for film fans.

The Metagame looks like Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity, but is a more social game, a more accessible game, and literally, a more Culturally interesting game. The Culture cards are well chosen, for they are thoughtful and engaging—engaging enough to draw players into the debates that most of The Metagame’s games revolve around. All of this makes The Metagame a good party game, but with six good games inside the box, The Metagame offers more than the average party game.

—oOo—

A Kickstarter campaign, The Metagame: The Games Expansion w/ Shut Up & Sit Down! is currently underway, seeking to fund a new expansion.

Battleships with Words

Codenames is the Spiel des Jahres—or ‘Game of the Year—award winner for 2016 and that is probably enough of a recommendation to try it and add it to your games collection. Published by Czech Games Edition, it is an espionage-themed word game that works as a party game and which can be played by between two and eight players. The players are split into two teams and one person on each team takes the role of their team’s ‘Spymaster’. His mission is to communicate the code names of his spies to his fellow team members; it is their task to understand the clues given by the spymaster and identity the spies. It is designed to be played by players aged fourteen and over and a game should last no more than twenty minutes.

Codenames consists of several decks of cards. These are the Codename cards (double-sided with a word like tube, bugle, Jupiter, palm, and so on); sixteen Agent cards in two colours (red and blue, used to identity Codenames by each side); a red/blue Double-Agent card (used to indicate the starting team); seven Innocent Bystander cards (used to indicate non-Agents); one Assassin card (used to indicate the Assassin who if identified by a team means that the identifying team loses the game); forty Key cards (these determine the location of the Agents, Innocent Bystanders, and Assassin on the grid); plus a rulebook and timer.

To set up the game, twenty-five Codenames are randomly drawn and arranged in a five-by-five grid. A Key card is drawn and shared between the two Spymasters. It shows them where their Agents, Innocent Bystanders, and Assassin are on the grid. On a team’s turn, its Spymaster gives a clue to the rest of his team. This clue consists of one word and one number. The word must be associated with—but not the same as—one or more of the Codename cards in the grid. The number indicates the number of Codename cards that the clue is associated with. So for example, a Spymaster has the following Codenames that need identifying: ‘America’, ‘Cap’, ‘Disease’, ‘Ham’, ‘Horn’, ‘Mail’, ‘Spring’, and ‘Whip’. So the Spymaster decides to give the clue ‘Supersoldier Two’ to indicate ‘America’ and ‘Cap’, hoping that his team knows its superheroes (or movies). 

The team now tries to guess the Codenames from this clue. If the team picks an Innocent Bystander instead of a Codename, its turn ends. If the team picks a Codename belonging to the other team, its turn ends. If the team picks the Assassin instead of a Codename, it has lost and the game is over. A team must make one guess on its turn and can choose to make fewer guesses than the number given by its Spymaster. A team that correctly guesses Codenames equal to the number given by its Spymaster can take an extra guess. This is useful if a team wants to return to a clue given in previous turn.

The first team to identify all of its Codenames wins the game.

At the heart of Codenames are two asymmetrical challenges. For the Spymaster, the challenge is, “Can I give clues to my team members that they will understand?”, whilst for the team members the challenge is, “Can we interpret and understand our Spaymaster’s clues?”. This requires no little thought by both sides, hampered of course, by the timer. 

On the downside, the game’s theme is a bit too light and if you do not like word games, then Codenames is not something that you will necessarily enjoy. If you do like word games, crossword puzzles, and so on, then Codenames’ simple design is both a delight and challenge. The game is also simple enough to work as a party game, but still be challenging without being overwhelming in its mechanics or appearance. The fact that it is a word game means that it is approachable and accessible to a non-gaming audience, a la Scrabble (yet better). Of course, it also works as a good filler game. The high number of Codename cards and Key cards (the latter for determining Codename location on the grid) means a wide variety of Codenames and grid layouts and thus a high replay value.

My gaming group described Codenames as being ‘Word Battleships’. The fact that there is a hidden grid involved and the game involves finding things on said grid and it easy to see the comparison. That said, Codenames is a light and clever game that will challenge groups large and small again and again.

Suitably Unqualified

In the wake of Cards Against Humanity, there has come a slew of party games designed primarily to be played by adults, such as Bucket of Doom, or at least by an older audience, such as Love 2 Hate. What these games have in common is that they have one player asking a question to which the other players supply the answers from which the asking player makes a selection, typically for comedic effect. In this they follow a design first seen in the highly popular Apples to Apples party game, but other designs have since taken the design and begun to do more with what amounts to a big, fat box of question and answer cards. For example, The Metagame from Local No. 12 uses the format to build not just one game, but several, all within the one box; Gorilla Games’ Who Would Win? has the players not only select an answer card, but also justify said card; and Funemployed has the players not only select an answer card, but use four answer cards and then justify them.

Recently republished by Urban Island Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Funemployed: The party game of real jobs and unreal qualifications. is a game in which the players are the Applicants for a job for which they are highly unqualified for, but are forced to apply using the Qualifications they have on the cards they hold. For example, the players have to apply for the role of a Gangster, for which one player has the Qualifications ‘Ambidextrous’, ‘Drive’, ‘Handlebars’, and ‘Loose’, another has ‘Crack’, ‘False Teeth’, ‘Gluttony’, and ‘Scalpel’, and ‘Excuses’, ‘Online Degree’, ‘Poker Face’ and ‘Red Sea’.

Designed to be played by between three and twenty potential Applicants, Funemployed comes as a box containing seventy-two Black Job Cards, three-hundred-and-twenty Green Qualification Cards, and a rules sheet. Each Black Job Card is headed with the term ‘Help Wanted’, below which is a job title, such as ‘Used Car Salesman’ or ‘Dominatrix’. One is marked with the phrase, ‘My Job’. This Black Job card is always included in a game and when drawn indicates the last round of interviews. Each Green Qualification Card is marked with a tick or check-mark and a Qualification, like ‘Day Job’, ‘Italian Accent’, ‘Lisp’, ‘Night Terrors’, ‘Scented Candle’, ‘Time Machine’, and ‘Trench Coat’.

At the start of the game, a deck of sixteen Black Job Cards is drawn, shuffled, and the ‘My Job’ Job Card is inserted into the lower half of the Black Job Card deck. Each player or Applicant receives four Green Job Cards as his Resume, whilst another ten are placed out, face up, where everyone can see them.

One player is chosen to be the Employer. He turns the first Black Job Card over and reads it out. Each Applicant has a minute to work out how to use his Resume to apply for the Job, but he can also rebuild his Resume by swapping Qualification Cards from his hand with those on the table.

For example, Ruth is the Employer and turns over the Job Card, ‘Competitive Eater’. Louise has the Qualification Cards, ‘Dirty’, ‘Hook’, ‘Red Panda’, and ‘Room to Grow’ as her Resume, whilst Theresa has the Qualification Cards, ‘Beefcake’, ‘Pathological Liar’, ‘Recess’, and ‘Utterly Adorable’ as her Resume. First Ruth turns to Louise and asks her to explain why she is qualified to be employed as a ‘Competitive Eater’. Louise answers, “As a Competitive Eater, I am quite prepared to get my face down onto the plate and thus ‘Dirty’, where I can use my ‘Hook’ for a hand to scoop food into my mouth. Further, my time spent training with a ‘Red Panda’ family means that I can digest almost anything, including bamboo leafs and because a lot of leafs are needed to in order to get a square meal, I have ‘Room to Grow’ and eat prodigious amounts. Ruth mulls this over before proceeding to Theresa and asking the same question. Theresa responds with “My Beefcake’ figure hides a ‘Recess’ for putting away the food from the competition, but if you do not believe me because I am a ‘Pathological Liar’, then I am sure that neither you nor the judges will find this to be a problem because I am of course, ‘Utterly Adorable’.” Ruth decides that while Louise’s ‘Hook’ will be useful, it might be too sinister and decides that although Theresa might not have the right Qualifications to be a ‘Competitive Eater’, being ‘Utterly Adorable’ more than makes up for it and awards Theresa the ‘Competitive Eater’ Black Job Card as the ‘Most Qualified’.

At the end of the round, all of the used Qualification Cards are discarded and new ones drawn. The next player to the left becomes the Employer, a new Black Job Card is drawn, and play proceeds as normal. The game continues until the ‘My Job’ Black Job Card is drawn. It is up to the Employer who drew this to decide if the Applicants are applying for his real life, actual job, or a job of his choosing. At the end of the round, the Applicant with the most Black Job Cards in front of him is the winner.

Physically, Funemployed is a plain and simple looking game. The cards are all of a good quality and having the names on each Qualification Card printed twice, once upside down, is a nice touch as it makes them easy to read from either side of the table. The rules are also simple and once the box is open, a game can be started in a few minutes. The game though, does have three problems. The first is its audience, as not everyone likes this kind of party game and the creativity and humour that it engenders. So sometimes a game can be dull because of this. The second is that it is an American game, so some of the Jobs and the Qualifications may not be familiar to everyone despite the ubiquity of American culture. Third and lastly, the game states that it is for players aged thirteen and up, but a minority of both card types are of a sexual or adult nature, and that in addition to the cards that can be interpreted as such, which means that out of the box, Funemployed is not suitable as a family game or a game suitable for players that young.

Nevertheless, Funemployed is a fun game, one that requires the players to be inventive and clever in how they explain the usefulness and applicability of their Qualification Cards. In fact, having to use all four cards forces each Applicant to be inventive and to think about their explanation to the Interviewer. Now having to use the four cards in his hand might mean that a player could be stuck with something unsuitable for the current Job or something that he just cannot quite explain how it applies, but having the ten Qualification Cards out on the table and being able to swap them to build a Resume means that a player can alleviate this problem by replacing one bad Qualification with one better. 

Despite the problems with this game and with this type of game, Funemployed: The party game of real jobs and unreal qualifications. is nice addition to the Apples to Apples style of party game. It requires the players to think about how they use their cards and gives everyone the opportunity to be creative rather than just give an answer card.

The US Election Game I

Like clockwork, the US Presidential Election rolls around every four years and with it, come a slew of US Presidential Election themed board and card games. Although strangely, they really only seem to appear in years where is the chance of switching from one party to the other, so Republican to Democrat or vice versa. So Z-Man Games’ 1960: The Making of the President was released in 2007 and followed by Campaign Manager 2008 in 2008. 2016 is no different with a half a Super Pac’s worth of games with a presidential theme coming our way in the run up to the US Election in November, most of them funded through popularity and pledges, just like the US Election itself. Of course, these games are funded via Kickstarter rather than through the ballot box. 

The first of these is The Contender: The Game of Presidential Debate. Funded via a successful Kickstarter campaign and published by The Contender, this is a social or party game in the mode of Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity. So it works by one player posing a question from a card to the other players, who will use their answer cards to supply answers to the questioning player who will select what he thinks is the most suitable answer from these cards. The person who played the selected card wins that round. Then the next player gets to pose the question whilst everyone else provides the answers, and so on. Play continues one of the players has won an agreed number of rounds.

Designed to be played by three or more players, aged eleven and older, The Contender uses this same mechanic, but with an extra twist that comes from its theme, that of US Presidential Debates. In The Contender, the game is played with Topic cards rather than question cards and Argument cards rather than answer cards. The player setting each Topic is the Moderator and the players making the Arguments are the Candidates. The Contender comes with forty Topic cards and some five hundred Argument cards. Each Topic card has a subject and a question intended to be read aloud to the Candidates, for example, ‘Guns – Candidate, the debate over the Second Amendment has only grown louder in the last five years. As president, do you intend to pull the trigger or dump ammo on the right to bear arms?’ or ‘Police Brutality – Candidate, law enforcement has come under fire as viral videos of alleged police misconduct make headlines. Do you believe our boys in blue are seeing red, or is the current outrage white-washing a complex issue?’ All of the Topic cards deal with contentious subjects.

The Argument cards are slightly more complex. They are divided into three types—Attack, Distract, Fact. Each gives a short phrase that can be used as an Argument and the source from which it is drawn. So the ‘You’re a national embarrassment.’ is from the Bill Clinton quote, “We can’t have any more instances like what happened when Mr. Bush went to Japan and the Japanese prime minister said he felt sympathy for our country.”; the Distract card, ‘I would like to be the first to say…’ is based on Jimmy Carter’s “Tonight I would like to be the first to say a few words about this most special office, the presidency of the United States.”; and the Fact card, ‘I’ve had actual responsibility’ is based on the Sarah Palin quote, “I guess a small-time mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”

At the start of the game each Candidate receives five Argument cards and the person with the most presidential hair is the first Moderator and poses the first Topic. Then going round the table each Candidate can respond with one, two, or three Argument cards. A Candidate does not have to play all three cards at once, but can choose to hold some for use later in the round, typically as a response to another another Candidate’s Argument. Once a Candidate has played three Argument cards though, his contribution towards the debate about the Topic card is over for that round.

For example, Dave, Debbie, and Louise are playing The Contender and it is Louise’s turn to be the Moderator. She turns to the others and says, “Christmas. Candidate, over 50 percent of the voters who describe themselves as Christian claim there is a culture war on Christmas. Do you believe the reason for the season is under fire? Or should those concerned realize there’s more than one way to deck the halls?”

Dave’s opening statement is, “I will not rest until all Americans have Christmas.” (Fact) to which Debbie responds, “Are you taking crazy pills?” (Attack) and “I will not support this boondoggle.” (Attack). Dave looks over at Debbie and raising his eyebrows, says, “Suck it up.” (Attack) “We have to strengthen Christmas.” (Fact). Debbie gets in one last comment, “You can’t even spell Christmas.” At which point each Candidate has played his or her three Argument cards and it is up to the Moderator to decide upon the winner, at least for this topic. Louise decides that Dave has made the most cogent argument and awards him the Topic card as a victory point.

At the end of each round, each Candidate draws back up to five Argument cards and the next player in turn becomes the Moderator. Play continues like this until the Candidate with most Topic cards wins. Or at least this is how I think that The Contender is played. The problem is not the basic structure of the game, but rather the use of the Argument cards. Does each Candidate read them out verbatim or can he adapt them? Neither is suggested. Nor is the use of the Attack, Distract, or Fact cards explained. The lack of an explanation does leave the rules open to interpretation, but coming up with your own explanation or interpretation should not really be much of an issue.

Physically, The Contender comes in the same style of box as Cards Against Humanity, but has an obviously American theming in terms of its graphical design. The cards themselves are sturdy enough, easy to read, and the quotes on the Argument cards are interesting to read.

In addition to its underwritten rules, the other issue with The Contender is its subject matter. The players have to be interested enough in the process of the US Presidential Election to want to play this game. Firstly, this makes it of limited interest outside of the USA; secondly, it makes it of limited interest to a younger audience—especially the suggested age of eleven plus; and thirdly, whilst the subjects presented on the Topic cards are rude or adult in nature, they are potentially controversial in nature. There may be some Topic cards that the Candidates do not want to debate. Whatever the players’ attitudes towards the subject on the Topic cards, The Contender is best played with an older audience and with more than just three players unless you want to play out the final US Presidential Debates.

Now despite its underwritten rules, The Contender is nicely themed game that does a bit more with the traditional Apples to Apples, using the Attack, Distract, and Fact Argument cards to help Candidates build their arguments in each round. There is also plenty of scope for the players to roleplay too, taking on a particular stance for one Topic, switching to another for the next Topic, and so on, whether playing it straight or for comedic effect. Ultimately, The Contender: The Game of Presidential Debate is a solidly themed party game that gets you ready for all of the hoopla of the US Presidential Elections.

An Eggumenical Game

The Hen Commandments is a chicken-based, religion-building party game. In just under forty-five minutes, between three and eight devout disciples of the Holy Chicken must interpret her Commandments that appear on the golden eggs she lays in a foreordained incident known as the ‘Second Clucking’. Agreeing to this interpretation is not a matter of co-operation though—it is a matter of debate and convincing the other disciples that the one interpretation is the one true commandment. If at the end of this ‘Council of Clucking’, more of your interpretations are accepted by the other disciples—as measured by the amount of Holy Corn* you receive—then you will be canonised as a Saint and in time will acquire your own disciples as the leader of a sect of Heninism.

*Do not question why the Holy Corn is cuboid.

It is no surprise that The Hen Commandments is published by Terrorbull Games. Responsible for previous titles such as War on Terror: The Boardgame and Crunch: The Game for Utter Bankers, Terrorbull Games is not a publisher prepared to shy away from difficult subjects. Both games have proved to be controversial, but is creating your own Commandments for Heninism as controversial?

Published via Kickstarter, The Hen Commandments primarily consists of two sets of cards—the Virtue Cards and the Egg Message Cards. The Virtue Cards are divided into sets, each of which is marked with a single virtue—Compassion, Desire, Discipline, Equality, Judgement, Purity, Sacrifice, and Tolerance. These used to explain a disciple’s interpretation of the Great Chicken’s Holy Laying. The Egg Message Cards are divided into decks numbered one through six. At the beginning of each round, an Egg Message Card is drawn from each of the numbered decks and when read in order forms one of the Holy Chicken’s Hen Commandments that needs to be read correctly so that it can be seminated to other coops.

Repeatedly deny the mighty house like the full moon

Each round consists 5 phases: ‘The Laying’, ‘The Reading’, ‘The Preaching’, ‘The Judgement’, and ‘The Reward’. During ‘The Laying’, the Holy Chicken lays the six eggs whose message forms her newest Commandment. In ‘The Reading’, the disciples have a minute to select the Virtue which they think best covers the new Commandment.

Once a year crave the meaty heart laid by the fruit of your loins

In ‘The Preaching’, the disciples reveal and compare their selected Virtue cards. Disciples who selected unique Virtue cards—that is Virtue cards that no other Disciple selected—then each receive a minute in which explain the new Commandment in light of their chosen Virtue card. 

Before you sleep nourish your inner sin by returning to the farmyard

Those disciples whose selected Virtue cards were not unique now vote for the disciple whose explanation of the Holy Chicken’s latest Hen Commandment is the most compelling in ‘The Judgement’. During ‘The Preaching’ those disciples who are judging are allowed to question those who are preaching, typically for doctrinal clarification.

On rest days covet the hungry gaze if you love the chosen ones

Penultimately, in ‘The Reward’, the disciple whose interpretation of the Holy Chicken’s latest Hen Commandment has been judged to be the most compelling  receives two benefits. The first is two pieces of Holy Corn**. The second is the acceptance of the Disciple’s reading as the accepted interpretation of the Hen Commandment.

**Do we need to remind you not question why the Holy Corn is cuboid?

Lastly, ‘Canonisation’ occurs after the ten Hen Commandments have been set. The Disciple who has correctly interpreted the most Commandments and thus been rewarded with the most Holy Corn***, is canonised as one of Henism’s saints (and thus wins the game).

***Really? Are you still questioning why the Holy Corn is cuboid?

Interestingly, it is possible to ‘game’ Hen Commandments, if only ever so slightly. A disciple can select the less obvious Virtue Card with which to defend a Commandment in the hope having to defend it. Of course, a disciple could do the reverse if he feels that he cannot defend a Commandment.

Try to covet your precious shepherd like the promised land

Hen Commandments is a game about building a religion and our desire to build stories means that as the disciples move from one Commandment to the next, they will find themselves building on those previous Commandments—that and using an awful of eggsreable egg and hen-themed puns. So for example, for one Commandment in our game a disciple defined the word ‘dehenestrate’—to exile a hen from the hen house—and this word quickly became woven into Commandment after Commandment. Which can make it something of a ‘coop-erative’ game. Other new words include ‘eggumenical’, ‘eggscommunicate’, ‘poultry interpretations’, ‘h-engrossed’, ‘getting too cocky’, ‘cocksure’, and so on.

Now, the designers very obviously obscure it by making it a game about an absurd—hopefully inoffensive—religion, but then focuses on the ridiculousness of doctrinal interpretation (to gain influence and power) and thus turn it into a game about pullet-ics. In doing so, it forces the players, or disciples, to think about their answers and to be prepared to defend them. This makes it a much more demanding game than similar party games such as Apples to Apples, Cards Against Humanity, and Say Anything, although the closest game to it is something like Gorilla Games’ Who would win? Of course its subject matter and the fact that it does make the disciples think also means that Hen Commandments is not going to find acceptance with everyone, but then neither does every particular religion. It is just that with Hen Commandments you can create a religion that you can agree with…

Kick the Bucket

In writing a review of Bucket of Doom: Death Dodging Party Game it would tempting to simply take my review of Cards Against Humanity and literally reskin it with the review of Bucket of Doom. Both use the same mechanic in that each turn one player has to match answers from each of the other player's hand to a given question and chooses the winning answer. Which makes both very similar to Apples to Apples, but what Bucket of Doom and Cards Against Humanity have in common is a mature subject which means that they are games for adults. Such a reskinning though, would be simplistic and unfair to Bucket of Doom.

Funded through Kickstarter and published by Big Potato, Bucket of Doom is a game in which you find yourself in incredibly dangerous or awkward situations and the only thing that you have to hand is very probably utterly useless. Like Cards Against Humanity, the packaging of Bucket of Doom is quite striking. Where Cards Against Humanity makes use of stark black and white throughout, Bucket of Doom actually comes in a bucket—a bright ‘toxic’ pink bucket. Inside can be found some five hundred cards, of which one hundred are Doom cards and four hundred are random Object cards. Also included in the box are the rules sheet, two voting pads, and two pencils.

The full colour Doom cards each give situation that it is deadly, or least perilous—and quite possibly controversial. For example, the simply perilous include ‘You’re an intrepid archaeologist and a giant boulder is chasing you down a dead-end tunnel’, ‘You’re James Bond strapped to a table. A redhot laser is burning a path towards your ‘bits’.’, or ‘Darth Vader senses that you did the ‘wanker’ sign behind his back. He starts suffocating you with his death pinch.’, whilst ‘You’ve been nailed to a cross for being nice to people.’ and ‘You are Edward Snowden and you’ve inadvertently boarded a flight to America.’ are certainly bordering on the controversial. The various Object cards range from ‘Record-breaking paper aeroplane’, ‘Hi-Vis Jacket’, ‘Bowl of Egg Whites’, and ‘Feather Pillow’ to ‘Justin Bieber’s Brain’, ‘A Grumpy Gnome named Gary’, ‘Full Colostomy Bag’, and ‘Number for a very prompt taxi service’. The Object cards are double-sided, white on one side, black on the other, and in a nice touch, have an object on each—thus giving not just four hundred objects, but eight hundred!

At the start of the game, each player receives eight Object cards. One player draws and reads out a Doom card and gives a few moments for the other players to look through their hands. Each will select one Object and think up a way of his using it to help his escape from the situation described on the Doom card. Everyone then takes it in turn to explain how the item described on their Object helps in their escape. Once the explanations are given, everyone gets to vote on the answers—of course you cannot vote on your escape plan—and the player with the most votes is awarded the Doom card. The next player reads out Doom card and so on and so on. The first player to garner three, five, or seven Doom cards—depending upon the length of the game—wins the game.

For example, it is Debbie’s turn to read out the question on a Doom card, which is, ‘Walking home after a night out wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress you are attacked by militant vegans.’ Peter, Stef, and I select what we think are suitable Object cards from our hands and concoct our explanations. So Peter grabs ‘Harry Potter’s owl, Hedwig’ and sends the bird off to get help from the wizard, who will either save me or resurrect him should the vegans pulp him. I pull out a ‘10m roll of turkey foil’ and wrap it around myself so that not only is the dress hidden, but what the vegans see I am wearing is their own clothes reflected in the foil—thus I am one of them! Stef grabs a ‘Pregnancy test kit’ and with a shout of “Don’t hit me! Think of the baby. I’m only wearing the dress to satisfy my pregnancy cravings!” Everyone takes a moment to consider their vote, but it is unanimously in favour of Stef’s escape plan and he gets the Doom card.

Of course, that was a mild example, but both the Doom cards and the Object cards are likely to engender much stronger, if not viler escape plans. Physically, Bucket of Doom is as simple as its game play. Its production values feel do slightly cheap, in particular the quality of the cards meaning that that they are not as durable as they could be.

Although there is much that is similar between Cards Against Humanity and Bucket of Doom, the play of the former is absolute in terms of its results and is less inventive. This does not mean it no less fun, but in comparison, Bucket of Doom is more flexible in terms of its results and is more inventive because it requires a greater input upon the part of the players. In this it shares more in common with Mad Science University from Atlas Games—both it and Bucket of Doom involve storytelling, and this aspect of the game is dependent upon the players. Which means that the humour of the game is also dependent upon the players. If that does not work, then the game is no fun.

The similarities between Cards Against Humanity and Bucket of Doom: Death Dodging Party Game are undeniable, but Bucket of Doom is is just different enough to provide a slightly different playing experience to Cards Against Humanity. In the right group, in the right frame of mind, Bucket of Doom: Death Dodging Party Game is a fun, light, and probably offensive party game.

Your Choice

The newest game from Looney Labs, best known for the Fluxx family of games and the time manipulation card game, Chrononauts is Choose One. This is a party style game much in the vein of Apples to Apples or Say Anything in that it is all about knowing your friends and the answers they might give to certain questions or matches. It plays quickly and easily with simple rules for between three and ten players; a game should last no longer than forty minutes and can be picked up and understood within moments of opening the box and reading the rules sheet.

Choose One consists of ten sets of pairs of Choice cards, three hundred Topic cards, a Score Board, and a mix of scoring tokens that fit in a little cloth bag. The scoring tokens are really rather nice and include a metal nut, a plastic brain, a wooden heart, and even a button! These are used to indicate each player’s score on the score board and provide some pleasing individuality. The Score Board is solidly mounted and is marked from one to ten and then a “Winner!” space. The Choice cards are used each round to indicate a player’s choice and come in a pair one blue and one white card. The Topic cards each have a blue and white section and have single word or phrase in each, for example, “an evening home alone” or “attending a party” or “Lost” or “Gilligan’s Island”. (It should be noted that the blue on both the Topic and Choice is a very purple shade of blue).

At game’s start, each player is given a set of Choice cards and receives a hand of five Topic cards. He chooses a token and places on the Start spot on the Score Board. Then play begins. Each turn, one player is the Chooser and picks a Topic card from his hand and shows it to the other players. They have to decide which of the two choices the Chooser will select. The Chooser indicates his choice by holding either his blue or white Choice card, face down. In doing so, the Chooser has to make a truthful choice. In other words, he cannot bluff. The other players will also select one of their Choice cards and hold it face down in front of them. Once everyone has made their choice, the cards will be revealed. If nobody’s card matches the Chooser's answer, then the Chooser gets two points. If any player’s card matches the Chooser’s answer, then both they and the Chooser are awarded a point. If nobody guesses correctly, then nobody gains any points. Points are tallied on the score board and the next player becomes the Chooser. The first person to move their token onto the Winner's Circle – having scored eleven points – is the winner. (Having to score eleven points to win makes the game slightly harder to win, as does the fact that somebody has to make the wrong choice for anybody to score points).

So for example, Richard is the Chooser and plays the Topic card that has “candles” in the white portion of the card and “Lava Lamp” in the blue section. He reads the entries out and makes his by placing a Choice card down on the table. James, Nick, Matt, and Bill take a moment to decide which they think of the two options that Richard will choose and play a Choice that they think will match the one played by Richard. Everyone reveals their Choice card. Richard’s Choice card is Blue, that is, he chose “Lava Lamp”. As did James, Nick, and Bill, but not Matt, who played a White Choice card thinking that Richard’s choice was “candles”. Richard, James, Nick, and Bill are all awarded one point, but Matt scores nothing.

Choose One is a nicely appointed game. It comes in a small box and is thus easily portable. Its rules are simple and the game is easy to play – undemanding in fact. Its Topic cards are American, but then so is the publisher and the game’s intended audience. Given that the game’s tag line is, “How well do you know your friends?” it is no surprise that it plays better with people that you know and people that know you, be they friends or family. Overall, Choose One is a pleasing party filler that tweaks a familiar format.

Wicked. Witty. Wrong.

Cards Against Humanity is probably the least politically correct card game I have ever played.

Cards Against Humanity is probably the funniest card game I have ever played.

Cards Against Humanity is probably the vilest card game I have ever played.

Cards Against Humanity: A party game for horrible people is an incredibly simple game of answering innocent questions with horridly hilarious and impishly inappropriate answers. It is easy to learn, plays for anywhere between thirty and ninety minutes, and can be played by between five and twenty players. In playing you will probably either overawe or offend your friends, if not both with the obscene nature of your answers.

Published by Cards Against Humanity, LLC, Cards Against Humanity comes in a chunky little black and white box inside of which can be found a simple rules pamphlet and approximately six hundred cards. Some ninety or so of these are Black Cards, each of which contains a question or statement such as “What did I bring back from Mexico?” or “Alternative medicine is now embracing the curative powers of _____________.” Some Black Cards have two blank spaces, such as “That’s right, I killed _____________. How, you ask? _____________.”. The remaining cards are White Cards, each of which contains a word or phrase, such as “The Chinese gymnastics team,” “Guys who don’t call,” and “Binging and purging.” The White Cards are used to answer the question or fill in the blank, or blanks if the Black Card has more than one, presented on the Black Cards.

Game play is very simple. At game start, each player is dealt a hand of ten White Cards. One person starts the game as “Card Czar” and draws a Black Card and reads out question or phrase on the card aloud. Every other player selects a White Card from his hand which he thinks is the most suitable – the wittiest, funniest, most offensive, or will be appreciated the most by the Card Czar – and passes it to the Card Czar face down. The Card Czar shuffles the White Cards that he has been given and then reads out the question or phrase on his Black Card, each time answering the question or filling in the blank in the phrase with a word or phrase from the White Cards. Once all of the White Cards have been read out, the Card Czar chooses his favourite answer from the White Cards. Whomever played the winning White Card receives the Black Card as an Awesome Point. Then the next player becomes the Card Czar, everyone draws back up to ten White Cards, and a new round begins.

So for example, as Card Czar, Michelle draws a Black Card and reads it aloud: “Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to _____________.” Going round the table, Dave plays “Unfathomable Stupidity.”, Anthony plays “Cheating in the Special Olympics.”, Hugh plays “A Gypsy curse.”, and I play “Britney at 55.” Michele takes these White Cards and after shuffling them, reads them out as follows:

• “Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to ‘Cheating in the Special Olympics.’”
• “Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to ‘Unfathomable Stupidity.’”
• “Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to ‘Britney at 55.’”
• “Life for American Indians was forever changed when the White Man introduced them to ‘A Gypsy curse.’”

Michelle looks the White Cards over and after a moment or two’s deliberation chooses “Britney at 55.” as the most appropriate answer. I get to keep the Black Card as an Awesome Point.

Play progresses in this fashion until the game ends. This can either be when all of the Black Cards in the game have been played, in which case the player with the most Awesome Points win; or when a player gains enough Awesome Points to reach a previously agreed upon total and thus win the game.

Physically, Cards Against Humanity is very simply presented. The cards are all two tone, black and white. None of them are illustrated. The text on each one is easy to read and the rules are similarly as easy to read.

Cards Against Humanity is huge fun to play, even if the examples given above do not wholly capture how much fun it is. Part of the issue with that is the fact that were I to include some of the answers given on the White Cards, I would attract undue attention from search engines. They can often be of an adult nature and that does not fall within the remit of Reviews from R’lyeh. That issue though is more to do with this site rather the game itself.

The most obvious fact about Cards Against Humanity is that it plays in a very similar fashion to Apples to Apples in that each turn one player has to match answers from each of the other player's hand to a given question. Which is something of a problem. Apples to Apples includes hundreds of questions and thousands of answers, so it offers plenty of replay value. Even then I tend to find its game play a little too light and unsatisfying if played too often. Cards Against Humanity contains fewer cards so suffers from the same problem, though probably to a greater degree, and playing it too often will spoil its crass charms. That said, in addition to the simple rules provided, the rule pamphlet gives rules for upping the stakes each round as well as eight house rules that can be added for variety.

One obvious problem with Cards Against Humanity is that it is an American game – then again, so was Apples to Apples originally, although it has since received versions in other languages and specifically for other nations. Some of the answers on the White Cards are specifically American such as “Dental dams.”, “Aaron Burr.”, and “Shaquille O’Neal’s acting career.” There is no way around this, bar creating your own cards, which is perfectly possible given that Cards Against Humanity can actually be downloaded from the publisher’s website and printed out for free. In the meantime, we will only have to wait for nation specific cards.

Further, its very American nature is not helped by its lack of availability. The game sells out very quickly it is true, but it is only available in the USA or in Canada. Where it is available internationally, the prices can be exorbitant. Nor is it available internationally via Amazon.com, which would have been the easiest of solutions to the problem. (In case you were wondering, I did buy it via Amazon.com and then had it shipped from the USA by a friend).

The biggest problem though with Cards Against Humanity is its humour. Putting the answers on the White Cards together with the Black Cards can give results that make you wince at their tastelessness and whoop with laughter at the same time. Many of the answers refer to sexual acts – hence the game having a minimum playing age of seventeen years – and other adult references. This is not a game for anyone of a “conservative with a small ‘c’” persuasion as Cards Against Humanity will easily offend them. Nor is it for anyone of a “Conservative with a big ‘C’” persuasion as Cards Against Humanity does have a Left Wing bias. Or at least the designers just have a deep and abiding hatred of Glenn Beck. (In all likelihood, to balance this out in a rare case of political balance, it appears from the rules that the game’s designers have hired Former Vice President Dick Cheney to handle their complaints and legal department).

Once you have a copy of Cards Against Humanity, you will chortle, you will cry, and you will cringe. Not necessarily a game to play with your family, Cards Against Humanity needs likeminded people who share its humour to get the most out of it, but it should not be overplayed or it will lose its appeal. Although slightly heavy to carry around, it works well as a convention game and as a pick-up game, possibly at the bar or just with a drink to hand. Going where almost no card game has gone before, Cards Against Humanity is a sublimely sinful satire.