Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/02/cards-against-gators.html
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On the one hand I am kind of done with CAH clones.
On the other hand I feel like this is breaking the rules of thumb about what direction good humor should be “punching” in.
On the gripping hand I feel like a bunch of people in LA really have no damn business making fun of people in Florida. Unless it turns out that the people driving this project forwards grew up in Florida this feels trashy; make fun of the people around you in LA, not of the subset of people in Florida who make the kinds of mistakes that result in “Florida Man” headlines. This will age about as well as an eighties collection of jokes about how dumb Polish people are.
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Hi there,
We love CAH and definitely don’t want to be a clone of their game. The look and play is similar, but there are few great points of difference that our players will enjoy.
Indeed, 2 of our 4 creators are from Florida and many of our family and friends still reside there.
Thanks for LA idea 
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headline:
Florida Man creates popular game making fun of Florida Man.
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Oh yay classism that’s supposedly funny.
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Somebody made fun of deplorables and they voted deplorable.
Apparently Florida Man has jumped the shark.
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It’s not so much that the Florida Gentlemen are uniquely crazy, as that Florida’s powerful disclosure laws make it easy to write the filler stories.
It drives a thriving news-of-the-weird beat because all police arrest reports and the records attached to them immediately become public.
Push for similar disclosure laws in your area, and give Florida some competition.
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Fun to do with friends: Each person Googles “Florida man” and their own birth date. Try it!
From a gamer’s perspective, my initial problem with this is the examples given in the image don’t add up to anything “funny” when I plug them in.
Florida Man disguises himself in Too Many Chicken Wings costume as he tries to burn down former lover’s house with Apologies.
Florida Man proudly claims he’s the first man ever to “Monkey Mondays” his buddy’s Cat Named Gary on video. Collects $68.
Even flipped around, it’s not making me so much as grin. Maybe I’ve played too much CAH, and I’m now jaded when it comes to this type of game.
From a designer’s perspective, I’m also wondering what the unappealing red grids are at the bottom of the question cards are about. I’m guessing it’s disguising the original headline… (looks at Kickstarter page) ah.
Once The Judge has chosen the winning headline they reveal the actual headline with the fancy decoder card. Could it be that the real life headline is crazier than the Action cards played? Probably.
This is an unappealing and old school gimmicky way of going about this. And it kinda kills any fun the game would have if, most of the time, the original headline is more interesting than what the players can come up with through their random cards. It’s really only as funny as the players are, and chance will allow.
Hell, as a gamer I would prefer QR codes that link to a website with the headline and a synopsis of the story, or even better a link to the full story. Sure, it relies on the website staying up, but honestly you could pay for 25 years of domain registration, and the site would likely outlast the interest in the game.
You could include a number on the card, in case someone doesn’t want to use the QR code, and provide a link to the site at the bottom of the card. Then they can enter that site address, followed by the number of the card, and go straight to it.
Part of what makes the whole “Florida Man” phenomenon work is that, not only are they outlandish, they are real. They happened, and the story behind the headline adds to the whole bizarre thing, usually.
“Mad Libbing” it doesn’t add to the bizarre.
I get that designing games is hard; I’ve tried it a few times myself. Reading about it, and looking at the examples, I would put my estimated fun factor of this at around a 2 out of 10. A 3 if I don’t have to dink around with a red decoder overlay.
But that’s just my opinion.
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This game needs better art.
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