This hilarious topical guessing game is ten bucks and fits in your pocket

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How is this game different from Time’s Up?* It sounds practically identical, although it’s true that the extra text on the cards probably helps when you don’t know what the subject is, which can be the case with hyper-ephemeral topical games.

*which does, of course, then raise the question about how Time’s Up is different to whatever public domain game it was originally “borrowed” from… But then again there’s no such thing as originality really, just a series of different disguises.

That question is asked and answered here: Times up clone? | Monikers

One of the designers weighs in with:

Person who made the game here. We’ve never played any of the Time’s Up games and only found out about them after creating ours. But from looking at sample names and the overall aesthetic, it’s a completely different experience. Sort of how Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity are basically the same ruleset, but lead to completely different experiences in practice.

Anyway, the reason we made the game is that we’re obsessed with the folk version and wanted to make the most perfect boxed version that we could. Specifically, we wanted to fix the bottleneck of having to write names — both in that it took a lot of time and there were always duplicative entries. Having said that, some groups do a great job writing their own names, but it usually drags on and makes for a less fun game. Not always, but often enough that I think having a prepackaged version with a tight, curated set of cards is a HUGE improvement for most groups.

What I think we did really successfully with Monikers was to make a cardset where nearly all the names have interesting things to do across all three rounds. That’s not usually the case with unscripted Celebrity or other boxed versions (lots of singers, politicians). Ours are weird enough and nearly always have some ridiculous gesture associated with them.

But yeah, this is my longwinded way of saying more is more. I’m glad there are so many instances of the game out there and I hope people really get a kick out of ours.

1 Like

Why not make a card for “Cards Against Humanity”?

3 Likes

I love microgames, and have been endlessly playing Coup now that it has an app for iPhone. I have never been so addicted to a game with 15 cards.

Because I am a big fan, I agreed to volunteer a name of a thing for a card in the expansion. Please hit the big DISCUSS button if you want to leave me some suggestions.

Whistle Tips.

Panty girdle.

This is identical to the game Celebrity. Indeed, from that Wikipedia article it sounds like a bunch of people have made commercial versions like this one.

I don’t quite understand the point of a commercial version, though. When we play with friends, everyone just writes 5-10 names and throws them in a hat. The names are more topical, more relevant to people you may have been laughing about recently, and different every game.

It is a fun game though.

Edit: The quote pasted by @kbreanach above explains why they think this is better than people writing their own names. It’s a fair enough explanation, and for some groups people may well agree with it. I generally prefer games that require nothing more than pencil and paper myself, though.

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