I always find that it’s hard to please little kids at the same time as teenagers and elderly people. “Apples to Apples” is a great board game, or as a family game, because of the simplicity of the rules, and the low maintenance. The first time I played, was on New Year’s Eve, and the rules were extremely easy to pick up, and understand!
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| red cards- comparing or defining cards |
When I wrote that “Apples to Apples” is a simple game, it is. The goal to the game is to win five times, (or get five green cards). To set up for the game, players must organize the green cards (words), and the red cards (defining words). In this process, each player grabs six red playing cards (players are allowed to look at the inside parts of the cards). One player is then chosen to be the “judge” first. The judge’s role for the first round is to pull out a green card out of the green card pile, and flip it over in the middle of the group of players. After this, the other players choose which of their red cards represent the word in the middle (the most), face down. After all the other players have put down their cards, the judge flips the red cards over, and reads them out loud. The judge then picks the red card that (realistically, logically, or in his/ her opinion) represents the green card the most. The player whose card was picked by the judge calls out that he/ she had been picked, and then takes the green card. All red cards go into the “discard” pile, and this session restarts until one player wins five green cards. Also, every ‘session’ the group changes the judge of the game, clockwise around the players.
Apples to Apples is a game of cards that doesn’t let anyone have a “wrong” judgement, play or turn. It is set up with two decks of cards, one (green) that has a word that should be described by the other cards, and the other, (red) that describe the word on the green cards. (Ex: green card: funny, red cards: a comedian, a ghost, or a teacher.) The game is low maintenance, with only cards as the game pieces, and is simple to learn, and play with younger or older people. The game can be a short game, or a long game, depending on how fast you want to play it. Though the ages for apples to apples is ages 9 and up, we played with six year olds!
“Apples to apples” was a great 'board game' (without an actual board). The game can be varied, time wise,
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| apples to apples cover |
because of the loose set of rules. In the game, players just need to win five set of games, and they can win. While playing “Apples to Apples”, players can change the 'winning point' in the game, lengthening or shortening it to their preference. This board game or card game requires very little materials. All the players need to play 'Apples to Apples', is a stack of green cards (words), a larger pile of red cards (defining words), and the players! Lastly, the simple card game is child- friendly. There are very few games that young children (six year olds), teenagers, adults and elderly can all enjoy- at the same time, during the same game. This has actually been quite a big problem in my family, but when we played this game, we were able to all play, satisfied. So, anyone can really play “Apples to Apples”, because you don’t require any knowledge, depending on the style that a group of players play.
There are barely any cons to the game “Apples to Apples”. In the card game, while my family was playing, some of the words (either on the red cards, or green cards) were a little too complicated for my younger brothers. When we played, we played by our opinions, but we couldn’t play (the version of playing in reference to real definitions) because some of the words were more advanced and complicated for the younger people in my family. But overall, I didn’t really find any problems, or confusing components while playing the game “Apples to Apples”, but I learned to play this game while playing with a group of people who already knew how to play. If I were to play “Apples to Apples” from scratch, it would probably be a little different.
As you may have been able to tell, I am quite fond of “Apples to Apples”. I really enjoy games that have loose rules. In this game, there are different ways to play! As a judge, you can “judge” the cards by opinion, or by a dictionary or thesaurus. You don’t necessarily have to make sense in the game; really just depending on the way the judges choose who wins. In a family or group with lots of different ages, I find it hard to find a game for everyone. “Apples to Apples” lets in different interests to people, and levels of knowledge (you don’t have to be very knowledgeable to the topics, depending on the way you play), because there is really no wrong answer, or move in the game!
I would rate “Apples to Apples” seven out of ten, because it was a great game for the family, and had simple rules that can be varied to your personal taste! The reason why I didn’t choose a higher rating is because of the little amount of creativeness of the game. There aren’t many complicated, or thought out rules that would make this game extremely original, comparing to other games.
Watch the tutorial vido of
How to play Apples to Apples!
