Do you have a younger sibling, friend, or neighbor going away to college for the first time? Need to get them a graduation gift still? Look no further than this list. Many would likely look at getting them the essentials, but what about the non-essentials to make sure that while they study they also find time to have fun? This short list contains games any undergraduate would enjoy playing with friends they meet on campus.
For those who are familiar with Cards Against Humanity (CAH), What Do You Meme? (WDYM) is similar in gameplay. For those who have no idea what CAH is, it’s an alternate game to Apples to Apples. To make things simple and since all three of these games are played the exact same way, I will only explain Apples to Apples then translate it to how the others work.
In Apples to Apples there is no game board, just cards. All cards are dealt out at the beginning of each game and players draw another card when one is played. There are a total of three sets of cards: the ones players draw from which are red, the one the judge for the round picks from which is green, and then the trash pile of all the cards that have been played. The judge draws a green card, reads what it is, and then other players pick a card from their hands that they think fits best with that green card. The judge reads all of the cards from the other players and chooses which card they think is the best for however they’re judging. Whichever red card the judge chooses gets the green card for that round and the judge changes to the next person (clockwise or counter-clockwise, which ever the group decides). To win this game, a player must get a set amount (either 3-5 or more depending on number of players and how many rounds group wants to play) of green cards.
In CAH, the red cards are white and the green cards are black. The biggest difference between CAH and WDYM is instead of putting down a black card for others to respond to, there are photo cards. WDYM players have caption cards that they put down in response to the photo cards. If all of this is just jumbled words to you and you rather watch a video on how to play, then here you go!
This game is very much like Taboo, however the difference is the words available in the game. To put it simply, this is a much more awkward version of Taboo. The objective of the game is to guess what word the lead player is trying to say. The lead player can use all words to describe what they’re trying to say except for six: the one they are trying to say and five additional ones listed below the main word on the card.
This sounds like a really fun and interesting game. I’ve played something similar like this while in college, but we didn’t have the cards or timed rules. How this game works is the storyteller picks a story card and reads what it says, that’s the first line of the story that’s being created. The other players will have “questions” cards in their hands which have one word or letter. After the story card is read, each player who is not the storyteller will choose one of their cards and ask the storyteller a question. The storyteller has ten seconds to come up with an answer based on what the other players card says. If the other players card has a word on it, then the storyteller must have that word in their answer. If the card has a letter on it, then the storyteller must start their answer with a word that starts with that letter. Now if a player doesn’t think the storyteller is making sense with an answer, they can use their challenge card against them. You can view a video here to get more of an idea of how the game is played.
This game is essentially the card version of the classic board game Clue. I felt that after throwing all of those new games at you, I should just go with a new version of an old favorite to end this list off right. I’ve never played this version before, but that won’t stop me from recommending it! After all, a board game might take up more space in the dorm than a deck of cards. The way you play this game is pretty self-explanatory. You put the secret cards in the folder like you would in the regular board version of the game, then instead of rolling dice around and moving a figure, you just ask questions to other players. You can learn more or order a copy of the game by clicking on the link provided.
