Say Anything is a light-hearted game about what you and your friends think. It gives you the chance to settle questions that have been hotly debated for centuries. For instance, "What is the most overrated band of all time?" or "Which celebrity would be the most fun to hang out with for a day?" So dig deep into your heart or just come up with something witty - this is your chance to Say Anything!
How to Play
1) Ask a question from the card you draw. For example:
- If you could have a "BIG" anything, what would it be?
- What's the most important invention of the last century?
- Which website would be hardest to live without?
- What's the best activity for a first date?
- What's the worst thing to say to a cop after getting pulled over?
2) Everyone else writes an answer and throws it face-up on the table as fast as possible. No duplicate answers are allowed!
3) Secretly choose your favorite response using a genuine state of the art SELECT-O-MATIC 5000:
4) Everyone else has two betting tokens to bet on which answer you chose. They can bet both tokens on one answer or split them between two different answers.
Who Will Like This Game?
Say Anything is a pure party game. It was designed to get a party started as quickly as possible by prompting people to talk about interesting things and to make ridiculous statements. If you are looking for great social interaction and lots of laughs, then you will probably enjoy playing Say Anything.
History
Say Anything was designed by Dominic Crapuchettes & Satish Pillalamarri. It was first work-shopped by game designers at Protospiel 2004 and refined at Protospiel 2005, PowWow 2005, the GoF 2005 - 2007, and weekly game nights at the Looney Labs.
- Encourages creativity and humor
- Accessible and quick to learn
- Strong player interaction and banter
- Humor can be inside-joke heavy
- Limited depth for heavy-strategy gamers
- Humor, perception of others' ideas, playful roasts
- Casual social gathering; players answer prompts and judge picks
- Improv-driven banter; lighthearted and social
- Coup
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- bet-with-tokens — Players spend tokens to bet on the judge's chosen answer.
- prompt-and-answer — The judge reads a prompt and players secretly write an answer.
- round-based-play — The game consists of 12 rounds to determine the winner.
- scoring-system — Points are awarded to the writer, bettors, and judge based on the outcome.
- secret-judge-selection — The judge secretly selects their favorite answer.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- current reigning defending board game club champion Lori Blake
- it's a hot start to uh to say anything
- i'm actually a staunch flat earther
- the selecto matic 5000
References (from this video)
- Ice-breaking and easy to pick up
- Good for groups with varying gaming experience
- Fosters playful debate and group bonding
- Humor can be polarizing
- Some prompts may feel dated or cheesy
- opinion-based discussion and humor
- casual social setting with a host posing prompts
- interactive and conversational
- Monikers
- Times Up
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- heated yet friendly banter — Encourages arguments and playful debate about opinions
- opinion polling — Players rank answers to a prompt and discuss preferences
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- interpretation is at the heart of dixit
- it's a beautifully simple game
- the closest you can get to role playing as an actual spy
- telestrations is the beautiful child of pictionary and the telephone game
- we all like each other and the experience is as comforting or as wholesome or as mean as the group wants it to be
References (from this video)
- can play completely clean
- can play creatively/naughtily
- ice breaker game
- gets to know friends better
- flexible tone
- large box (takes space)
- may not fit on tables
- party game
- social
- creative
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- board games are sort of absolutely central to my life really and my being my makeup and also to my relationship the relationship with evenness that's what we do we play games
- the thing about this one is I want simple games I want games which are very very small I want to be able to put them one on each of the tables
- I'm very proud of the games I've made I want to be able to show the games off to people I haven't seen for a long time
- this is what I would call a pure game it's one mechanism and that mechanism is fun that mechanism is just lying to your friends or telling the truth
- I would play this any time I absolutely love it
- it's a card game classic okay it's a staple
- every time we end up laughing every time we attract a big crowd
- it's a really good game for children but it's also a really good game for adults who don't play many games
- the great thing is I've got a German version so I can put that you know where the German contingent at the wedding can play it
- the ingenious thing is the fact that there's always a match between two two cards but only ever one thing matches it's a mathematical marvel
- it's gonna be a game that that the German people can easily pick up without me needing to have a separate sort of German Edition
- a bunch of my friends will feel more comfortable sitting down and playing a board game than they will dancing and getting rekt
References (from this video)
- very approachable
- encourages creativity
- great for big groups
- humor varies by audience
- stories can drift long
- Balderdash
- Monikers
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card drafting / bluffing — Answers are ranked by group, relying on humorous or surprising responses.
- free-form answer guessing — One player poses a question and others submit answers; players vote on which answer is best.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's absolutely hilarious
- it's absolutely astonishing
- we've got three rounds in the first round
- it's a fantastic party game
- the neighbors called the police because I thought we were having a riot
References (from this video)
- great for family gatherings
- involves voting and discussion
- humor depends on participants
- opinion-based prompts
- family gathering
- humorous, social
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- prompt-based writing — players write answers to prompts that reflect opinions
- Voting — the judge and others vote on favorites; highest votes win
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's brilliant it puts you in a corner which makes your attempts to get out of that corner all the funnier
- this game is a classic family party game great for dinner parties and Christmas
- Cards Against Humanity's greatest strength is its inclusive humor