Apples to Apples

Describe Apples to Apples here.

"Pleasing", "enjoyable", "charming"... Show me "Delightful"!

People tend to like games of word association. Apples to Apples by Out of the Box Publishing takes this idea and runs with it. Each player draws a hand of seven red nouns, and then take turns being the judge and drawing a green adjective card, with the other players tasked with submitting the red card they believe most fits that adjective. Of course, it's smart to play the judge as well as the cards, and making a completely inappropriate suggestion can lead to a player winning a given round, too.

The position of judge rotates every round and the player who wins the round keeps the adjectives card for that round. Whoever has the most greens whenever everyone gets bored is the winner.

Tropes used in Apples to Apples include:

• Bribing Your Way to Victory: "Playing to the judge" is highly encouraged.
• Celebrity Power: Cards naming Penn & Teller, Cary Grant, Bullwinkle, and many, many others.
• Expansion Pack
• Game Mod: Blank red and green cards are provided for players on which to write personal ideas.
• Genre Savvy: The players, one should hope!
• House Rules: Some players leave the aforementioned blank cards blank and allow players to come up with whatever they want.
  • Another is to throw in a random card from the draw pile into the pile of cards for judging. The draw pile is amazingly capable of winning.
  • Or putting in the red cards before anyone knows what the green card is.
  • Inverting the roles of the cards, so adjectives describe a noun, is very popular.
  • Put in a pair of red cards, and the judge describes how they think the pair relates to the green card.
  • Hell, the game even gives a list of how many green cards a player should gain to win the game based on how many people are playing. Very few people actually use that limit and just play until everybody agrees to stop.
• Kingmaker Scenario: The whole point of the game, with the Kingmaker switching every round.
• Noodle Implements: Happens if your hand consists of what you consider garbage words.
• Refuge in Audacity: Some of the possible plays (like just about any dead person and "Fragrant") clearly invoke this. "Helen Keller" is practically a magnet for these jokes: "Touchy-Feely", "Senseless", "Visionary", "Easy"...
• Rule of Cool/Fun/Funny: The game practically runs on all three.
• Shaped Like Itself: Matching "Fuzz" to "Fuzzy", "Masculine" to "Men", and possibly others.
• Shout-Out: Way too many to compile into a mere list, and growing all the time.
• So My Kids Can Play: Apples to Apples Kids/Junior, although the base game itself is rather tame.
  • Well, until you consider just how many terrible mental images can be made via use of the "Adolf Hitler" card, not to mention the "J.F.K. Assassination" card, the "Berlin 1945" card, the "Vietnam 1968" card, et cetera.
    • Also, a lot of the pop culture references may be lost on young kids.
• What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: When cards such as "Last Night" or "Pond Scum" are sharing space with "Arsenic & Old Lace" and "Corrugated Cardboard"... Yeah, it's that kind of game.