MetagameA long time ago, I played a lot of 'Apples to Apples' with my family. The game was quite simple - someone plays a card with a topic, adjective, or concept on it, and people play a card from their hand that they think best matches it. Laughter and discussion followed when the word was 'vacuous' and the options included 'Tony Blair' and 'Eastenders'.
The mechanic was then used in 'Cards against Humanity', replacing the anodyne with dead babies and casual racism, and making millions in so doing. Almost every camp, party, hostel trip, or idle moment would at some point involve someone pulling out the iconic black box and guilty laughs about Fred West and misogyny.
But that too got old.
I wanted a simple game for non-gamers and gamers a like that would fuel pointless discussion, debate, and nonsense, much like the early Apple days that could be quickly set up and explained and everyone would enjoy. One night last winter, I came back from a night out a little tipsy and idly started watching various 'Shut up and sit down' videos. One of them was talking about a then-current kickstarter and showed the team playing a simple topic association game that seemed like it would fill that hole. I therefore created an account on Kickstarter, sent some money, and then completely forgot about it until the notifications about printing and shipping started appearing in my inbox last month. Oops...
So, the 'Metagame'. Or, technically, 'Metaquilt', because the set includes various rulesets but other than this one they all look like 'Apples to Apples' clones or just plain unfun. It was the Quilt that appealed to me on that drunken November night and that's the game we're going to call 'Metagame'.
As ever, you have a black deck of concepts, topics, and opinions, and a white deck of answers all drawn from popular culture, life, the universe, and everything. It seems I'd bought the film expansion too, so in those cards went. You start with a hand of ten - five of each. The house rule of discarding unfamiliar US references and drawing replacements whilst whistling 'God Save the Queen' applies.
A black card is turned over as the starter. Over time you'll be making a patchwork quilt of cards, with topics and answers touching each other in a pleasing layout.
On your turn, you choose a card to play and place it so it touches a card of the opposite kind and, somehow, addresses the card it's touching. So, if you have a black card saying 'Hot', you could place a white card of 'tea' next to it. If it touches more than one card in its space, it must make sense for both.
Any player may then decide to challenge you on this and play a card they think better suits that space on the grid. After a short discussion, the remaining players point to who thinks they should win. If the challenge succeeds, that card takes its place, but if it fails the challenger has to discard that card and draw two more as punishment. Finally, whoever played a card gets to discard as many cards as that card is touching. The turn ends and the next player starts. The winner is the first person to get rid of their hand, but their final card must be played on the board.
It's simple and the bizarre connections your friends make between 'reminder of our mortality' sitting next to 'the Bible' and 'Saturday Night Fever' is wonderfully surreal. The growth of the quilt as it spreads across the table is pleasing on the eye too, and looking for a spot to play a card whilst it's not your go adds to this. The mechanics suggest that it's better to never challenge and risk enlarging your hand, but part of the game is the silly arguments so it's always worth doing if you think you can top something or get a laugh.
Definitely one that's going to come to the table when we need something light. I don't recommend, however, late night drunken Kickstarter as a regular activity - I got lucky this time.