This week, I analyzed Cards Against Humanity, a social judging game. It was made by 8 high school friends (more information here). I played it in a group of eight, and played two rounds of the circle = 16 total rounds. This was the ideal number of players and the ideal number of rounds – the game lasted about 30 minutes, and stayed novel because each player only judged twice.
The target audience is older high school age+ students; the cards are raunchy and the game is frequently paired with drinking. We did not drink while playing.
The main formal elements to note are that 1) while the type of competition remains the same throughout the game (multilateral), the system determining who wins is a player themselves. This is a hallmark of judging games. 2) The person judging changes with every round. These elements, in addition to others, led to many interesting dynamics and aesthetics that I’ll highlight below, in order of importance.
Competition
Contributing Mechanics:
- The method of judging who wins is fully subjective
- Cards are judged anonymously
- Game judger changes every round
Dynamics: Most of the dynamics arise from there being no objective truth (points, majority consensus, etc.) to determine who wins each round. This prompts discussion during the judging period. The discussion is complicated, however, by the anonymity of the game: players can’t explicitly own up to the cards they placed down. So, many complicated dynamics arise, like:
- The judger trying to reverse-analyze who might have put what down in order to not award another black card to someone already winning.
- People claiming the game is “rigged” if the same person happens to win twice
Both of these happened while I was playing, and kept the game interesting.
Finally, the changing judger each means there is no one strategy to win the game: the method of choosing a winner is allowed to change every time. Some judgers just went with their gut, while other polled the crowd, and others did a more systematic “ruling out” method.
Type of fun: The lack of a concrete way to win and the changing dynamics that accompany that creates competition, which is exactly what makes this game fun. In order to win, a player has to be constantly learning about the friends they’re playing with, and has to be invested in the game. I think this is a success of the game designers.
Discovery:
Contributing Mechanics:
- Simple mechanics (as noted above, there are very few concrete rules in the game)
- Quick rounds
- New card picked up each round
Dynamics: Because there are few concrete rules, many house rules emerge (time limits, skip the double cards, “play with the black cards” inversion, etc.) Additionally, fewer rules means the rounds are quick. While quick rounds are fun for a social party game, they can also start to blur together if one player starts to dominate. But, the fact that new cards are picked up each round makes the game continue to feel fresh, and helps the game keep a natural balance around who’s winning.
Type of fun: Discovery keeps the game going: it is fun to pick up new cards and see the new prompts every time. Thus, this was a success on the part of the designers.
Expression
Contributing Mechanics:
- The player has a choice between many cards in their hand to pair up with a public prompt
- Everyone is responding the same prompt and has a hidden hand (not perfect knowledge)
Dynamics: Because the answers are read aloud at the end, people want to have the funniest answers. People also want to be good choosers which one does everyone else think is the funniest?)
Type of fun: While the Expression fun is a big part of the game, I also think it is perhaps the only failing of the game: I saw that people were frequently stressed about putting down the “best” card, or choosing the “funniest” card. This detracted from the two types of fun above.
Final Thoughts and Changes I Would Make
I love this game, as do most people, and accordingly found that the mechanics colluded well to make dynamics that successfully produced fun. There is only one change I would make, which I know would not work for everyone: create an option of a concrete way to judge the cards (e.g. majority consensus). I think this would make the game fun to play even with people you don’t know well (lessening the intimacy curve), as you would not be stressed about seeming funny when you’re the Card Czar. For me, this would increase the fun of Expression while mantaining Competition.
