National Gamers Guild
Angel
13 March 2002
USA

Would you consider Katharine Hepburn to be 'feminine’? Or would Baby Showers be a better choice? How about 'sexy’ - would Rappers, Snakes or Count Dracula be the best fit? Sound intriguing? Then you have to play the sidesplitting game, Apples to Apples.

Apples to Apples is a complete boxed card game. It consists of 321 red apple cards, which are nouns-persons, places, thing, and also events. A few examples are Whoopie Goldberg, Labor Unions, Computers, etc. There are 107 green apple cards, which are a characteristic of a noun or event-descriptive words. Some examples of green apple cards are Luscious, Nerdy, Ancient, etc. And just to throw in some personalized fun, they’ve also included 1 blank green and 3 blank red apple cards for you to get creative with. I personally have a lot of ideas for these!

You need at least 4 players to play and you can have up to 10. I’ve found that the more players you have, the crazier the fun is! For the first round, you need to determine who will be the judge. The judge deals out 7 red apple cards, face down, to each of the players, including him/herself. Once everyone is “ready”, the judge picks a green apple off the top of the deck and flips it face up on the table and reads it aloud. Everyone races to lay down a red apple card, face down, that they think best fits the green apple. With 4-5 players, only the first 4 red apple cards laid down qualify to be judged and each player can lay 1 or 2 cards down. It is up to the judge to watch and cut everyone off after 4 cards are down. With 6 or more players, each player can only lay 1 card and the last player to put a card down has to take it back.

The judge then determines which card he feels is the best match-unknowing who laid which card. Now keep in mind, there is no right or wrong answer. The judge may find it too hard to resist picking Bill Clinton as the best fit for 'Sexy’ even though Marilyn Monroe is the obvious choice. We often find ourselves in friendly debates with the judge for not picking our red apple. Sometimes we have a pretty good case for it, too! The person who laid the judges best pick, wins the round and gets the green apple card as his trophy. After the winner of that round is proclaimed, everyone draws a new red apple card to replenish their hand and they move on to the next round.

At this point, the player to the judge’s left becomes the judge for the next round. For a 4-player game, the person who is the first to collect 8 green apple cards wins! The more players you have, the fewer green apple cards needed to win.

I have to admit; I’m not big into strategy games, where you have to do a lot of 'thinking’ and 'scheming’ so this game is great for people like me as well as the avid role-player. It is easy to learn and it is an awesome game for parties! A typical game lasts anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes.

Rule Variants
There are some variations to the game that are a on the back of the rule card that comes in the box. They can put a whole new twist to the game! I won’t go into them now - I’ll let you try it for yourself.

Expand on the Fun!
Apples to Apples have also put out some expansion sets to give you a wider variety of red and green apples. I couldn’t resist buying a small deck of blank cards to add some personal touches to the game. After all, someone may find me 'Sweet’ or 'Profound’, but then again, maybe they would find me 'Chunky’ or 'Creepy’ - I don’t know, you be the judge!

I would highly recommend Apples to Apples to anyone. It is a 'must have’ for every game collection. If you don’t have any party games, this is the first one you need to buy! Your friends will want to get together every weekend to play “That Apple game”. I know mine do.

Oh, and for all you parents out there, there is also an Apples to Apples Junior! (Also, the game even won a MENSA award! ­ Guild Master)

Written by Angel
(Posted 03-13-02)

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