Apples To Apples - Fun Party Game

It's Thursday, time for some fun. When I worked at a game company we used to have Thursday game night every week where we would turn off the computers at 5 and head to the conference room for some old fashioned gaming. We were a small group (about 8) and had two exceptional game designers who also had large collections of board games. I'm going to take a quick diversion from game development each Thursday and talk about some of my favorites.

One of our favorites was a party game called Apples To Apples. It had just come out and is now available everywhere, but I'm sure not everyone has heard about it now? Very very simple to play and a lot of fun and laughes for a group of 4-10.

The basics, one person (let's say my friend Hank) plays a random green card face up. It says "annoying". Everyone else has to play a red card (face down) from their hand that they think Hank will choose for the word 'annoying'. You have a hand of 8 preprinted cards and the choice of card you play would probably be different depending on which person in the group is choosing. The cards in my hand might have things like. "Marilyn Monroe", "My Social Life", "Hockey", "Celine Dion", "Tornados", and "Strawberry Pie". After everyone has played a red card from their hand face down, Hank might end up with cards like: "Craying babies", "The NRA", "My Haircut", "A bar room brawl", and "Celine Dion". (you can see which card I chose. feel free to leave an angry comment. Even though I think the NRA is annoying that person doesn't know Hank is actually a gun lover). Hank turns them up one at a time and reads them out loud. After, he picks the one he think matches "annoying" the best. Now, if Hank thinks the way I think he should think, he'll choose "Celine Dion". If he does, I first give a Homer Simpson Whoooo Hooo, then I get to keep the green card. First one to some number of green cards (typically 4 or 5) wins. See, simple.

Many of the card combinations are hillarious and you'll have a great time with any group. A very fun game and did help build cohesion within our team.