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Let’s Build A Stupid Party Game

Oh pickles it’s Sunday night and I haven’t written a post yet for the week. I was also two days late for my Accountability Club email so I think it’s safe to say that the muse just isn’t with me this week. But such is the nature of my mind’s workings, that I’m once again going to jam in something of indifferent quality at the last minute just to keep my streak alive.

So I’ve got… nothing.  So today I’m going to give myself a low-chance-of-success design challenge: A Party Game. Oh, I don’t mean I have a mechanic in mind! Heavens no. No I’m just going to write until an idea comes to me!

So let’s start big, with that old Experience-First approach. When I think of successful party game experiences, one of the key elements is limited time. A timer removes the potential for analysis paralysis, and does the neat trick of both raising and lowering the stakes. In the immediate term, the stakes are raised because of the limited decision space. In the longer term, the stakes are lowered because of the decreased investment and subsequent opportunity for repeat play. I also think the more players are engaged at once, the better; certainly there’s potential in making players long for their turn to come around, but is it worth the Quarter on the Arcade Cabinet frustration? For the purposes of our exercise, let’s say no; in fact, let’s go for simultaneous play, but with dropping in and out between rounds.

Alright, next up let’s talk about how we’re going to get engagement. You know what people love? Weighing in. Judging. Having a goddamn opinion. And you know what people have mixed feelings about, but which I love? A theme. It’s the damnedest thing - A significant amount of the time, I’d rather a Euro just be featureless white cards and counters but when it comes to party games I get annoyed at the abstractness. It’s almost like I have my preferences and my standards are more or less realistic or fair based on those preferences. ALMOST. So how about for our game? I want a leadership thing. Pirate captain would kind of necessitate some sort of underhanded mechanic, Office manager is too ironically mundane, how about a military paste-on? How about we name the game after a famous General: General Consensus.

So why General Consensus? General, because we’ll have two sides for every decision that the players will judge, with the General managing the proceedings. And Consensus because the game will be about best predicting or shaping the Group Mind.

Am I… just about to reinvent Quiplash? Hmm. Let me… put aside for the moment the ways in which I would move in a different direction from Quiplash. How about instead; A Tournament? Called Bracketeering? A topic (maybe just an adjective) is chosen by the previous round’s winner, and then each player submits an answer for it, and then the answers are put into a bracket and voted on.

For General Consensus, maybe it’s not about judging funny answers, but about superlatives. Who present is the most likely to (have a deep dark secret)? Outrun a bear? Be an undercover cop playing the long game? And the General is the person who has voted in the majority the most times; and the person who determines which two people are being considered for each superlative.

Both ideas feature lots of voting, and the timing thing comes down to twenty seconds to generate content and ten seconds per vote. Clear winners, lots of chances to drop out and come back in. So hey! Two for the price of one. And maybe I’ll write down some formal rules for Bracketeering, or come up with a set of cards for General Consensus. Anyway, that’s all for this week! Buhbye now.

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