Party games for poor decisions

Great card games for groups

By Sonam Kaloti, Arts Editor

Card games are a great form of entertainment among old friends, just as much as they are valuable for breaking the ice. Here are some lesser known-games that may be worth your while (but may be more worthwhile at a party).

What Do You Meme?

In my humble opinion, any meme game is a bad meme game. Upon opening the box, you get a little easel to prop up the meme card, which is an image that everyone in the group must caption with one of the cards in their deck. The meme pictures are either old 2006-esque images or strange stock photos. I was raised in the virtuous land of Tumblr memes, where sometimes there were goats scaling mountains captioned with “they crave that mineral,” and it was comedy gold. Perhaps I am simply nostalgic for better memes, since What Do You Meme? seems to be a disappointing representation of the recycled and overproduced “Instagram memes” we get today. The caption cards are humorous and reminiscent of Cards Against Humanity, taking on witty, and some slightly disturbing, tones (see: “When she wants to meet your dad but so do you”).

Drunk Stoned or Stupid

This game can be played in two ways. The judge picks out a card, which can read anything from “Says they ‘literally failed that test’… gets a 98 percent,” to “Is a little bitch”—and then the rules split. As an icebreaking game, each person, in order from the first person to the left of the judge, tries to convince the judge as to why they should be “tagged” with the card. With classic rules, the player would try to convince the judge of who in the group should be tagged with the card. I think the premise of this game is fun and will bring up a lot of embarrassing history between you and your friends. With that, I think it also has room to solicit drama, which is always fun (not really). As an icebreaking game, I always say mutual vulnerability fosters closeness, so telling a bunch of strangers about the worst decisions you’ve ever made is bound to start some interesting conversations.

Never Have I Ever

Sure, you can come up with these on your own, but that’s a lot of brain power. Most scenarios I’ve been in where a group is playing the traditional Never Have I Ever turns into a slight embarrassment for the person whose turn it is; no one wants to seem too lame or too wild. Well, now you can be more embarrassed because this card game manages to put each individual more on the spot than ever before! Each player must have 10 Play Cards at all times, which are “examples of poor life decisions,” according to the rulebook. The round starts with a Rule Card being put in the middle, which decides what players must do for that round, such as “I get to pick any Play Card in my hand and make someone answer it.” If you are guilty of a Play Card, you get to display it in front of you on your “wall of shame,” and the first person to win 10 Play Cards wins. Surely a great game for when you want to break the ice by admitting you’ve “Flirted with my best friend’s partner to see if I could get them in bed.”