The Rise and Fall of Cards Against Humanity.

Dear, Cards Against Humanity

I wanna begin by saying that I don't hate you, by far you helped me out a lot in High School. You got me out of my shell and helped me to socialize with others. Your basically the reason I survived sophomore year. Your shock value made me laugh and I loved the Holiday Bullshit... But alas I realized that it wasn't you I was enjoying. It was my friends.

I've been playing board games for 6 some odd years and I started to realize that the best humor came from when my friends did things in games, explained reasoning, and it was funny. Now I think Matt Lees put it best when he said, "I suspect that people don’t often question the nature of the game that they’ve actually bought. And that’s fair – asking people to analyze fun can kill parties quicker than your gay dad kills children.The joke I just made wasn’t funny or appropriate, but crucially it remains my joke. Jokes aren’t a mechanic to get us out of trouble when we find out we’ve done something wrong, and creating a joke comes with responsibility. If the above was anything other than a nasty springboard to the point I’m currently making, I’d expect to be held to account for it." And that's the problem. When I use to play you a lot it was never really about the jokes that the cards could form. "Jokes aren't Lego" to quote that same review from earlier, and so when you try to build clever and witty humor with cards you can't... It just sort of fumbles and isn't chosen because most people want to hear the most uncomfortable card and not necessarily the most clever. 'But', I hear the straw man cry, 'you can set tone and reward the clever.' Sorry no you can't, the tone is baked into the game and the tag line. You can't escape it.

So why did I initially enjoy it, simple, it was watching the pure and innocent say the dirtiest of things. Watching our valedictorian saying "@#%@% #%&% $%!@ $#^@@#$%" was the funniest thing the world. But the joke got old. And fast. And as a consequence I was only enjoying the company if my friends and not really the game itself. Any game can achieve the former but the latter is what it needs to execute on. So what are some good CAH alternatives?

1. Funemployed - A game where you play as Job applicants with the worst resumes imaginable.

2. Monikers - An old public domain game with an amazing printed card version.

3. Dead last - Social collusion but it's by far the best social collusion game, and it's really funny when everyone is trying to stab each other in the back.

4. The meta game - Trust me on the meta game.

5. Win Lose Banana - Is this a game?

6. Super Fight - CAH but with super powers.

And even better some of these games you can get for free (if you have a printer.) So sorry CAH you've been replaced.

Sincerely,

-Nash Farmer




P.S. As punishment for failing to write something yesterday as compensation I will write a 10 minute play this weekend that will immediately enter the public domain.