Playing Apples to Apples
A game which several members of our family enjoy playing is Apples to Apples. In this popular game, there are green apple cards that have descriptive words written on them (eg. dainty, intelligent, sensitive) and there are red apple cards that have places, events, or things on them (eg. going to the dentist, rolling the car, bombs, inside the sun.) Each player is dealt five or seven red apple cards. For each round, one player is designated as the judge. He or she turns over a green apple card from the deck, and all the other players submit one red apple card from their hand to be judged. They place them face down on the table so the judge doesn't know who submitted which card. The judge then looks at the cards and determines which of the red apple card best fits the green apple card. (eg. Going to the dentist might be judged the most intelligent of the four red apple cards mentioned.) The player who submitted the chosen red apple card gets to keep the green apple card, and the first player to get a certain number of green cards (or has the most green apple cards when you finish playing) is the winner.
This is one of Peter's favorite games, and so we frequently find ourselves playing on Sunday evenings just for him. One thing that I find interesting are the different strategies that people use when they play. I tend to over think things, and try to think not just which red card is most like the green card in my mind, but what the person who is judging likes or how they think. For example, if the red card is "Disgusting" and I happen to have "kissing" in my hand, I would play it if Peter was judge, but definitely not if Steven was judging. I try to save nouns like "duct tape" or "unicorns" for when Hannah is judging because those are things she likes.
On the other hand, Steven will frequently stack his red cards face down, draw the top card off his deck, glance at it so he knows what it is, and then submit it. The cards he submits are totally random, and yet it is astonishing to me how often his card is chosen!
Sometimes we can't convince many family members to play, so we have come up with a few variations to make it fun with only a few players. Frequently we will add one red card from the deck to the pile of red cards submitted by the other players. That way, if there are only three people playing, the judge still has three cards to choose from instead of only two. (And yes, the pile often wins the round!)
The last time we played with only three players, each player was dealt ten cards and was allowed to submit two red cards for each green card. This way, we had two chances to win, and the judge had more cards to choose from.
The Wikipedia article I linked to above mentions at least ten variations, but one of my favorites is Apple Turnovers, where the roles of the red and green cards are reversed, and the players submit the green description cards to match a red noun card.
Another fun way to play is Crab Apples, where instead of finding the red card most like the green card, you try to find the card least like it.
Another variation I remember reading somewhere was to encourage players to choose their red apples quickly: the last player to submit a card had to take it back, and wasn't in the running to win that round. We don't play that way - usually because we don't have enough people, but there have been times that I wished we were playing that way when someone takes a very long time to decide which card they are going to submit.
When we are done playing, and before we put the cards back in their box, we have one more tradition. We look at the green cards we have won and see how well they describe us. I could be irritating, risky, clean and magical, or I could be funky, timeless, sappy and crazy. If I had a good enough understanding of the word to win it, I must be it, right?
This is one of Peter's favorite games, and so we frequently find ourselves playing on Sunday evenings just for him. One thing that I find interesting are the different strategies that people use when they play. I tend to over think things, and try to think not just which red card is most like the green card in my mind, but what the person who is judging likes or how they think. For example, if the red card is "Disgusting" and I happen to have "kissing" in my hand, I would play it if Peter was judge, but definitely not if Steven was judging. I try to save nouns like "duct tape" or "unicorns" for when Hannah is judging because those are things she likes.
On the other hand, Steven will frequently stack his red cards face down, draw the top card off his deck, glance at it so he knows what it is, and then submit it. The cards he submits are totally random, and yet it is astonishing to me how often his card is chosen!
Sometimes we can't convince many family members to play, so we have come up with a few variations to make it fun with only a few players. Frequently we will add one red card from the deck to the pile of red cards submitted by the other players. That way, if there are only three people playing, the judge still has three cards to choose from instead of only two. (And yes, the pile often wins the round!)
The last time we played with only three players, each player was dealt ten cards and was allowed to submit two red cards for each green card. This way, we had two chances to win, and the judge had more cards to choose from.
The Wikipedia article I linked to above mentions at least ten variations, but one of my favorites is Apple Turnovers, where the roles of the red and green cards are reversed, and the players submit the green description cards to match a red noun card.
Another fun way to play is Crab Apples, where instead of finding the red card most like the green card, you try to find the card least like it.
Another variation I remember reading somewhere was to encourage players to choose their red apples quickly: the last player to submit a card had to take it back, and wasn't in the running to win that round. We don't play that way - usually because we don't have enough people, but there have been times that I wished we were playing that way when someone takes a very long time to decide which card they are going to submit.
When we are done playing, and before we put the cards back in their box, we have one more tradition. We look at the green cards we have won and see how well they describe us. I could be irritating, risky, clean and magical, or I could be funky, timeless, sappy and crazy. If I had a good enough understanding of the word to win it, I must be it, right?
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