Cards Against Humanity fundamentally shifted - some might say ruined - the party games market. In the past 10 years or so there has been a huge influx of "adult" party games, both cut from new cloth, clones of CAH, and dirty versions of classic family party games. Whether this is a good, bad or indifferent thing is debatable. But I was pleased to get a chance to try a potentially contentious, yet clean and fun party game in GroupThink, a new release coming to Kickstarter in spring of 2020.
GroupThink is a game of controversy and conversation. Start with a card with a question on it, which is read to all players. Then everyone secretly selects their "Agree" or "Disagree" card. After that, everyone secretly estimates, by selecting from their deck of cards with numbers on them, how many people selected "Agree". Then everyone reveals their cards and anyone who got the number exactly right, gets a point. It's that simple!
That part of the game is fine, but where the game is really memorable is in what happens next. Now you discuss as a group why you agreed or disagreed. This can make for some lively and fascinating discussions. People can get so into it that the game suggests setting a timer! Otherwise, you and your friends/family could be talking all night.
My prototype copy of GroupThink is solid, but the inventors of the game are working on polishing up the questions. There are some very good questions in my copy but not all are up to par. Also, some are very open to interpretation. It was not clear to us whether we were intended to try to reach consensus in defining what a question meant, or each interpret it for ourselves. As an example, we found a question about "If you were waiting at a red light at 4 am and there wasn't a car in sight, you would run the light" to be ambiguous. How long are we theoretically waiting? Some of us who are very law-abiding had been stuck at red lights for 5 minutes or more in the middle of the night, which to us implied they were malfunctioning. These are minor quibbles and I'm sure the questions in the published game will be excellent.
The game includes a variant called YouThink. This one focuses on one player at a time. You take turns being the active player and everyone guesses whether that person Agrees or Disagrees with the question. You don't need the number cards in this version. Our friend Marc went first and we joked that the game should be called "Question Marc".
Obviously my game had prototype components, but I need to give a shoutout to the meeple pieces that were provided to track players' points. My players loved these. "Sparkly," "Beautiful" and "Adorable" were all used to describe these.
My players were effusive in their praise of GroupThink. If you and your friends enjoy discussion games, I recommend you give it a look. You can play with your family too, the game box says players as young as 12 are welcome. Although the game box jokes that the game "should not be played on first dates, with future in-laws or in place of a job interview," it's overall good clean conversational fun. And if you really feel the need for a more filthy rendition of this concept, there's always the game Privacy.
I will update this review with a link to the GroupThink Kickstarter when it is live.
GroupThink is a game of controversy and conversation. Start with a card with a question on it, which is read to all players. Then everyone secretly selects their "Agree" or "Disagree" card. After that, everyone secretly estimates, by selecting from their deck of cards with numbers on them, how many people selected "Agree". Then everyone reveals their cards and anyone who got the number exactly right, gets a point. It's that simple!
That part of the game is fine, but where the game is really memorable is in what happens next. Now you discuss as a group why you agreed or disagreed. This can make for some lively and fascinating discussions. People can get so into it that the game suggests setting a timer! Otherwise, you and your friends/family could be talking all night.
The game includes a variant called YouThink. This one focuses on one player at a time. You take turns being the active player and everyone guesses whether that person Agrees or Disagrees with the question. You don't need the number cards in this version. Our friend Marc went first and we joked that the game should be called "Question Marc".
Obviously my game had prototype components, but I need to give a shoutout to the meeple pieces that were provided to track players' points. My players loved these. "Sparkly," "Beautiful" and "Adorable" were all used to describe these.
My players were effusive in their praise of GroupThink. If you and your friends enjoy discussion games, I recommend you give it a look. You can play with your family too, the game box says players as young as 12 are welcome. Although the game box jokes that the game "should not be played on first dates, with future in-laws or in place of a job interview," it's overall good clean conversational fun. And if you really feel the need for a more filthy rendition of this concept, there's always the game Privacy.
I will update this review with a link to the GroupThink Kickstarter when it is live.
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