Cards Against Humanity

This game is not for kids

Seriously, a lot of the cards themselves have pretty offensive text on them. Just do a Google images search "Cards Against Humanity", but not while you are at work.


Ease Of Learning: 5/5 - Easy
Player Interaction: 3/5 - Interactive
Replay Value: 4/5 - Great
Play Duration: 15-30 minutes
Humour: 5/5 - So funny I had to leave the room
Luck: 2/5 - Some luck involved

Cards Against Humanity is an independently produced game (Under the creative commons license). It is based loosely on Apples to Apples, which is a fun party game for the whole family.

Both Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity use the same basic rules. Each player has a number of cards in their hand with some kind of scenario, person, or description, and they have to match it to the category card played each round.

In Cards Against Humanity, a player could have the following in their hand:

• Friendly Fire
• Road Head
• Feeding Rosie O'Donnell
• A bleached asshole
• Dwarf tossing
• Estrogen

The category card comes up saying "What is Batman's guilty pleasure?"

How offensive and/or funny this game can get really depends on the people you are playing with... and maybe how much you've had to drink.

Citadels - Recommended By Buck

A few years ago, I walked into my favourite board game store, and asked the owner, Buck, for some advice. I was hosting a game party, and I wanted a game that was easy to learn and fun for a large group of people. Buck recommended Citadels as a quick to learn, quick to set up, and fun for everyone game. As usual, he was right.

Citadels by Fantasy Flight Games


Ease Of Learning: 4/5 - Easy
Player Interaction: 3/5 - Interactive
Replay Value: 4/5 - Great
Play Duration: 20-40 minutes
Humour: 2/5 - Sometimes funny
Luck: 2/5 - Some luck involved

The basic idea is that when it comes to your turn, you can do only 3 things:

• Draw a card or take gold
• Spend gold to play a single card
• Use a special ability

The special ability is what makes this game fun, and what adds a level of interaction between the players. There are 8 role cards to choose from, and every round the players secretly choose a new role.

There is a competitive edge to the game, and many of the special abilities involve hindering your opponents in some way. I could choose the Warlord role in one round, for example, and use my ability to destroy cards that my friend has played.

The game is easy enough to play that everyone can enjoy it on their first play through, and interactive enough that everyone will continue to have fun with it so long as they enjoy their company. I recommend it for any game shelf.

Game Night!

My name is James, and I really like board games. My favorite kinds of games are those that have simple rules, don’t take too long to play, but still pose a fun challenge for the average adult or teen gamer.

In this blog, I want to focus on looking at a few games that are simple, engaging, and create interactions between the players. The social aspect of gaming is what I enjoy most; I find many games to be a wonderful way to get to know your friends better and have a good time.

Each game I will be looking at will be graded on six key aspects I find important for a casual game night:
 
Ease Of Learning: Games that are too complicated or take too long to learn can turn off some casual gamers. The faster a game is to pick up, the quicker everyone can start having fun.

Player Interaction: Interactions between players can be anything from combat to trading cards. I like games that encourage the players to interact with each other as much as possible.

Replay Value: Is the game still fun the 10th time being played?

Play Duration: 5 minutes or 5 hours? An important question.

Humour: If you are in the mood to create some laughs, there are some pretty funny games out there.

Luck: How much of winning the game depends on strategy and planning, and how much comes down to a lucky cast of the die?

The importance of these key aspects depend entirely on you and your group, of course. Thanks for reading, and have fun!

- James