Introduction
I played Apples to Apples with a group of four friends and one new friend this past week. Apples to Apples – designed by Mark Osterhaus and Matthew Kirby, and published by Mattel – is the “Game of Crazy Combinations”. It is a card-based game designed for 4+ players in a social setting, targeted at families and young adults. There are two main mechanics of the game. The first is to create word associations between “red cards” and “green cards”. Red cards have various people, places, events, and things, and Green cards have characteristics that can often be used to describe the nouns from Red cards. Upon each turn, a Green card is flipped and each player (besides the judge) is tasked with selecting a Red card from their respective hands that most closely matches with the Green card characteristic. This leads to the second mechanic of “judging” in which the judge then scrambles all the submissions faced-down, reads the entries, and then picks the Red Card that they believe best fits the characteristic listed on the Green card. These two mechanics of rapid decision-making and subjective interpretation create a dynamic which requires players to balance logic and creativity to maximize delight by other players. This is intended to create fun in the category of “fantasy”, in which oftentimes ridiculous and silly made-up word associations can spark laughter and joy.
Thesis
Although Apples to Apples more explicitly is designed to spark fun through “fantasy”, I think a more nuanced, yet deeper fun is developed through “fellowship”. Through playing the game, I learned that Apples to Apples is not exactly a game measuring how well a player can find a Red Card that most accurately matches the description on the Green Card; rather, it is a game of “how well do you know the judge”. This underlying mechanic elevates the objective of the game beyond “matching” and more toward “outwit” – what Red Card can you pick that is going to resonate the most with the judge more so than any other player’s card?
Learnings and Evidence
As I played the game, I realized that my approach to playing Apples to Apples closely mirrors my strengths and weaknesses as a team member in a group. One of my greatest strengths as a product manager is that I lead with an affiliative style of leadership; in other words, I am quick to pick-up on patterns with respect to how people behave and what they respond well to. For example, the below image depicts one of the game scenarios that emerged from our game play:
The highlighted card represents the card that won the round. As seen from the image, the judge (Susan) didn’t pick the card that most closely aligned with the description of “Dangerous” (presumably “Shark Attack” or “Vampires”. Instead, she chose a more whimsical and funny answer (“Taxes”). In the following rounds, I noticed that Susan didn’t deviate from this judging strategy and thus I adapted my approach accordingly by attempting to choose the most humorous card in my hand.
Similarly, the below depicts a situation when another friend (the friend who is a relatively new friend in the group) was the judge:
Opposite to Susan’s approach to judging, I realized that this friend usually chose the most logical option. This revealed an interesting group dynamic reflecting the level of comfortability between friends. The newer friend to the group perhaps subconsciously played it safe (adhering to the most logical option) in order to fit in with the group dynamic without question. On the other hand, Susan likely felt comfortable with picking the most ridiculous, humorous options because of her well-known reputation as the group “joke-ster”. In the “What is a Game/What is a Game Not” reading, fun is defined as “when we learn without stress to solve a puzzle and master tasks”. The two different gameplay dynamics embodied by Susan and the new friend can potentially introduce a layer of stress to the game play, which creates a challenging gray area in which “fun” can quickly turn into exclusion.
The last dynamic I would like to highlight is how my behavior as the judge changed based on the situational context. Halfway through the game, another friend Joey complained “How have I not won a single round?”. This sentiment influenced my decision-making process as the judge. Although my tendency was to select the most creative choice, I decided to alter my approach to each round (choosing most logical, choosing most funny, choosing out-of-the-box solution, etc) so that a diversity of winners would be chosen. I think this tendency of mine is reflective of my desire to be a mediator, or “consensus-builder”, in a team environment. I tend to avoid conflict and awkwardness at all costs – even if it means a slightly worse outcome – and I think my role as a judge reflects this behavior.
Analysis
I also played the Jackbox Party Pack game “Quiplash” with a different group of friends. The mechanics of word/phrase association and judgement are still the same; the difference is how judging is conducted. Whereas Apples to Apples has one judge for each round, Quiplash pits two answers to the same prompt against one another, and everyone except the authors of the featured answers votes on their favorite answer. After everyone has voted, the Quiplash UI reveals who voted for each answer and ultimately declares a winner. Unlike how a round in Apples to Apples has one winner and three losers, the Quiplash 1:1 comparison creates a dynamic where there is a clear winner and loser for each prompt in the round. I felt like the 1:1 comparison created more tension and felt more exclusionary especially in cases where the group unanimously voted for an answer that wasn’t my own. In retrospect, I deeply appreciate how Apples and Apples was designed to minimize the potential of “ganging up” on individuals and thus optimize for collective fun. Another significant aspect of the game that positively differentiates Apples to Apples from Quiplash is that submissions to the prompt remain largely anonymous, with the exception of the person who submitted the winning answer. This minimizes feelings of embarrassment for the losers of the round who may not feel confident in the answers that they submitted.
Improving Apples to Apples
If I were to improve Apples to Apples, I would incorporate more creativity into the Green card prompts, similar to the prompts in Quiplash. For example, instead of Green cards only including one-word descriptors (ex. “Funny”, “Beautiful”, “Smelly), I think Green card prompts can be more descriptive. An example from Quiplash that I enjoyed was “Things you want to see at the end of a rainbow”. In a similar line of thinking, I also think the Red cards can allow for more creativity and personalization; in fact, I think Red cards can be eliminated completely! For each Green card prompt, each player can write down a response on a piece of paper, fold it up, and give it to the judge. I think this freedom would extend the lifespan of the game (ie increase the amount of game play users want to engage in).
Ethics
Throughout my reflection, I have mentioned several places within “Judgement” type games where players may feel uncomfortable and/or excluded. For any games involving judging, I think the risk of hurt feelings is inevitable. There are a limited set of game restrictions that a designer can implement to minimize this risk (ex. 1 winner, 3 losers versus 1 winner, 1 loser); however, I believe it is mostly the responsibility of the players to respect each other and address tension points. When playing any multiplayer game, I think there is an unspoken, mutual agreement that everyone is playing for the sake of fun. In the context of judging games, this means that players should only engage in the game if they think that the reward of fun by creative word association outweighs the risk of hurt feelings by not being picked. If a player evaluates that they are not in an emotional state to be judged, then I think it’s the responsibility of the player to remove themselves from the game because they will never achieve a state of fun given the mechanics of the game. Regardless of the type of game, I believe that each player has the autonomy to determine whether or not the nature of the game will be “fun” to them; this self-awareness helps to uphold the integrity of the game experience and the emotional well-being of every player.
