- Designers: Matthew Kirby, Mark Alan Osterhaus
- Manufacturer: Mattel
- Artist: John Kovalic
- Year: 2008
- Players: 4 – 10
- Time: 20 – 30 minutes
- Ages: 12 and up
As I was looking through the list of games I’ve talked about, I realized that I’ve never mentioned Apples to Apples. It’s probably because I have kind of a love/hate relationship with the game.
It’s a great game when you have a bunch of people. It consists of two decks of cards, Things/People and Descriptions. Each turn, the current referee draws a Description from the face-down deck and players try to quickly pick, from the cards in their hands, the Things that best match that Description. We actually play that the slowest player doesn’t get to submit a Thing that round. Players get to argue for the cards of their choice, then he referee chooses the Thing that appeals most and awards the card to the player who played it. There can be some really funny comparisons. Once a player has won a pre-determined number of cards, that player wins. It’s as easy as comparing “apples to apples.”
So, it’s a light, enjoyable, funny game that I often have a blast playing. We have an expansion box, too, adding to the number of possibilities.
Sometimes, though, the game frustrates me to death. Okay, maybe it’s not the game’s fault, it’s more due to the people I tend to play with. We have a group of people we play with regularly. It’s me, my husband and four other single men in their 20s and 30s. We have other people rotate in and out occasionally, but these are our base. The problem is that referees often award 
the card to the funniest comparison, and I just don’t have the same sense of humor that they do. The referee will say David, for example, wins the card, and I’ll be complaining that a different Thing is right, that his just stupid. Then we have some Things, that are pretty much guaranteed winners, like Ninjas, whether they make sense of not. I get annoyed.
By the way, there’s also an Apples to Apples Junior for kids 8 and up that Amber (10) and her friends really enjoy.
Our copy was purchased and the above is my honest opinion. I am an Amazon associate.
We play Apples To Apples frequently with our game group. My hubby has the same complaint as you. I think it’s fun and enjoy it.
Ninjas don’t hold a match (he he) to exploding penguins but they are pretty sweet.
Sure, I agree that this can be annoying sometimes. But, I find it equally annoying when you have some Spock-like, logic-beats-all newbie playing that must choose what is “right,” over what is witty.
We play this every year at our women of the family weekend, so we have about 12 or so people and it is so much fun! I can see that it would make a difference if you played with people with a differect perspective than you!
I love his new game Picaroon! picaroonboardgame.com