Episode: 2152
Title: HPR2152: Apples to Apples Tabletop Game
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2152/hpr2152.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 14:57:49

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This is HPR Episode 2152 entitled Apple's Topical Tabletop Game.
It is hosted by Klaatu and in about 14 minutes long.
The summary is Klaatu Review Apple's Topical Tabletop Game.
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You are listening to Hacker Public Radio, my name is Klaatu and this is an episode
in my Tabletop gaming series about apples to apples.
Apples to apples is a card game I spoke earlier about a related game called
Cards Against Humanity which is basically a blatant ripoff of apples to apples.
I had not played apples to apples until very recently so I kept hearing
about it because every time cards against humanity would come up in conversation,
the obligatory response to it was, well, it was either, oh my gosh, that's such a
brilliant game.
I love it.
That's hilarious.
Or it was, oh yeah, that's just a dirtier version of apples to apples.
And you kind of got the feel of how people, you know, which card game people
would opt for given the choice based on that kind of response.
So I kind of came to apples to apples thinking, okay, let's test it out.
Let's see how much light cards against humanity it really is because I had no idea
why I kept hearing about it but I'd never played it.
So I was very curious about the game itself and kind of how it went.
And so I gave it a go.
And the play mechanic of apples to apples is, well, exactly the same as cards against humanity.
So you've got like a green card, maybe it's a red one I forget, but you have one kind
of card that essentially has an adjective and you place that on the table.
And every player around the table then looks at their hand and comes up with some kind
of response to that, that descriptor.
They lay their response down, face, face down on the table.
And whoever is the judge that turned picks up the answers, reads them aloud,
and chooses who, whose answer is the funniest.
The answers obviously end up ranging from very, very funny to just totally wacky,
to nonsensical, to thought provoking, to utterly routine.
It's, you get a pretty wide variety of responses I felt if we're going to compare
it to cards against humanity, which in my mind I do, I felt like the variety
of answers was greater in apples to apples.
Not strictly true.
Because even cards humanity, you'd find that one player who is just very literal.
And every answer they provide is the literal description of the thing that has been read aloud.
You know, just like, not funny.
You know, it's just like, yes, this is true.
But in apples to apples, I felt like you could get, yes, this is, I see why you would say
that, you know, this thing is, a descript is aptly described by this word or this phrase or whatever.
But you could also get things that kind of, yeah, we're almost like deep man, you know,
like things that would actually make you think.
And yeah, I guess it's, because it's not relying on just the absolute lowest form of,
of humor possible, you do get a wider variety of reactions, of potential reactions,
which was interesting.
I hadn't expected that because I was just so used to everything being so silly and,
and disgusting and, you know, obligatory, funny apples to apples was, was surprisingly,
it had a sneaky little intellectual side that kind of, kind of,
poked its head in there and kind of, kind of made itself known from time to time.
So that was surprising.
Nice thing about it, obviously, is that there's really no learning curve.
It's almost not even a required reading level, really.
I mean, as long as you can take a card from your hand and put it on the table,
you've got a chance to win that round.
It's that easy.
Arguably, you could do that as a strategy, just play cards at random, see what happens.
And that's cool.
I mean, that's, that's in terms of, you know, how we, in computing talks,
we talk about intuitiveness and stuff.
I don't know how intuitive that is as a game mechanic, but it's certainly not that hard.
I mean, that's, that's a pretty low barrier to entry.
So in terms of entry level game, I would say that this really kind of works really well.
And, and the added strategies, as with cards against humanity,
comes, comes with how you yourself play your hand.
You know, like maybe you adapt your humor for the people around you.
People I was playing with kind of picked up on the fact eventually that I kind of enjoyed slightly macabre or avant-garde answers.
So when I was the one judging all the answers, I tended to get responses that they felt would appeal to my sensibilities.
And vice versa, like I would start picking up on people's senses of humor and kind of appeal to them.
And other times it would just be completely seemingly random where like I would pick answers,
and I would even consciously try to pick something that was not typical of what I would have picked,
and it just kept being the same person, like this one person at the table.
It was just really weird.
So yeah, it's, it's fascinating sort of psychology.
And again, I think because we're dropping the, the, the, the gross out humor of cards against humanity,
you, you, you do pick up on a, a completely different set of, of psychology, you know,
whereas cards against humanity, it's just who can be gross?
Like who can, who, let's just all laugh no matter what.
Whereas apples to apples, it became a lot more like a normal conversation, you know, like an adult conversation.
Like some things were funny, some things were thought provoking, some things were literal, some things were whatever.
So very interesting.
So in my mind, I guess it was almost less like cards against humanity than I expected,
which seems odd because the game mechanic is literally the same.
It is exactly the same thing.
So it, it's very clear that cards against humanity is the naughty version of apples to apples.
But there's just that difference in culture of apples to apples and that different kind of the, the different way that it,
that it, that it inspires conversation.
I found apples to apples less reliant upon upon pop culture references as well.
I don't know if that's intentional or whether that was just the look of the draw,
but I certainly felt like the answers were a little bit more probably less zeitgeist, I guess,
and more just sort of broadly, you know, broad, normal person answers.
And I, I think that's a distinct advantage because cards against humanity, like I say,
or like I said, in the cards against humanity episode was,
if you're not sort of dialed into what the internet says is funny,
or maybe what the TV says is funny, I'm not sure both, maybe,
then a lot of the humor is going to be lost on you.
So having a game that's far less reliant upon that makes it a lot more,
you know, it's going to make it appeal to a broader audience.
But it's also obviously going to appeal to a broader audience because it's not all,
you know, junior high school humor level.
It's, it's a lot more intelligent.
But I feel like I'm belaboring that point at this, at this stage.
The, the real strength of, of cards, I guess, again, for me is that
it is written into its culture that creativity is, is an important side of the game.
Whereas I, maybe I'm just, maybe I just, maybe I'm not dialed into it,
but I didn't get that same impression from Apple's to Apple's.
I don't know why it's just maybe it was the group I was playing with.
Maybe it was the, the, I don't know, maybe it was the lack of the creative comments logo on the box or whatever.
I'm not sure, but I, I didn't ever get the feel that we were supposed to sort of invent our own jokes
right out our own answers on, on blank cards, that sort of thing.
And again, that could just be because the group that I played cards against humanity with
are, are creative people, you know, they're, they're the type of people they go to.
Renaissance fairs, they, they're, they're, they're, they do crafts.
You know, they're, they're very sort of like creative types.
So maybe that's just kind of something that they are more interested in than the people who
argue typical Apple to Apple players.
I don't know.
But certainly with cards against humanity, the culture of creativity was stronger in my experience.
I felt like apples to apples was also a little bit not only did it encourage a broader range of answers.
It was also just kind of, it was less specific.
I think in cards against humanity, a lot of the things that you're putting on the table as when you're judging answers.
The card that you read typically are very kind of like mad lib, you know, it's kind of like before bed I like to blank.
I mean, in the context of cards against humanity, there's, there's only so many answers, you know, like that that come to mind.
Whereas apples to apples, it seemed like a lot, there are far fewer sort of like lead ins, you know, like I'm going to set this up for you.
And now you can tell a joke with apples to apples, it was a lot more just like here's a thing.
Comment as opposed to like I say fill in the blank with something, something funny.
So that was something that I noticed.
So comparisons aside because apples to apples is its own game and cards against humanity is its own game.
And comparisons aside, I would say, you know, whether or not I had ever heard cards against humanity, apples to apples, brilliant game.
It's easy. It's fun. It's a great party game. Super simple.
Really non threatening. It's just super super easy.
Like I say, this would have been my first tabletop game.
I had the courage to approach the group that was playing it and asked to view that in or not the courage just like the wherewithal.
It wasn't that I was intimidated by them. I was just not, I just wasn't clear that I was a card game person at that time.
So I didn't ask like, hey, can I join in?
But if that had been in my sights, I think I would have, I would have, I would have been able to join in apples to apples very easily.
Obviously no learning curve. Super simple. Non threatening. It's not like you have to remember any kind of rules set.
It's it's just so so easy. So this is what I'm trying to say is that this is a great starting game.
Like if you want to introduce someone to the fact that hey, it's okay. You can play cards.
You can play cards that aren't that that's not a poker deck and this game will feel nothing like one of those games.
Then this is a great game for it. So apples to apples is not a horrible thing to have on your bookshelf.
That said, I don't actually have a copy of it. But, but certainly I do enjoy it when I get to play it.
And I highly recommend it if you've never tried it. Thanks for listening.
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