A few weeks ago I mentioned buying a game or two to play as a family. One that I recommended was Apples to Apples, which also has a Jr. edition. We had the original version and bought the Jr. edition for Christmas. My daughter (who’s 14) doesn’t know all of the words or people in the original game and thought she would like the Jr. edition better. I just wanted to post a quick update now that we’ve played both.
It’s a very easy game. Every player gets 5 red cards. The red cards are nouns.
The green cards are adjectives.
The judge (players take turns being the judge) draws a green card and places it face up in the middle of the table then the rest of the players choose the word on their red cards that they think best fits the green card and places it face down on the table. We just throw them on the table and the judge really doesn’t know who’s card is whose. If you have some sneaky judges in your family you might want to have them cover their eyes or turn around or something. Then the judge turns the red cards right side up and selects the one they like best.
What makes this game fun is that you never know exactly what the judge is going to pick – the word that is the best match, the exact opposite, their favorite word, the shortest word… If the judge chooses your word you get to keep the green card from that round. The first player to collect 5 green cards wins!
They do have definitions of the words on the bottom of the card. The definitions on the green cards are accurate.
while the ones on the red cards aren’t always very helpful.
I love the Chicken Dance.
My daughter had been asking for Apples to Apples Jr. for a while. She hated getting the cards she didn’t know, like “doing the dishes”. (I’m just kidding, she knows what doing the dishes means, she just doesn’t participate in that activity very often.) It is one of the games we got for Christmas.
We had my husband’s parents and his brother’s family over for dinner the weekend after Christmas. The adults (notice I didn’t say grown ups, there definitely weren’t many grown ups involved) played cards while the kids played Apples to Apples Jr. The kids ranged in age from 10-16. We could hear them laughing in the other room. Eventually the older people switched to Apples to Apples. The kids somehow ended up in our room and we played together. It was FUN! We read the definitions on the words the kids had trouble with but they still played the cards they weren’t sure about.
The next weekend we went to my dad’s for my step sister’s birthday. This time we started out with Apples to Apples Jr. It just wasn’t as much fun. I think because the words are simpler, there aren’t as many opportunities for twisted combinations. We ended up switching to the regular version after the first round.
So, my recommendation? Get Apples to Apples Jr. if you’ve got really young kids or if you think you might have kids playing together. If your kids are a little older, or if most of your playing will involve adults and children together, go with regular Apples to Apples. Just make sure you get one of them. It’s really a fun game, easy to learn and doesn’t take forever to play. You’ll learn some things about each other, too, like who thinks the chicken dance is refined.
When you get it, be sure to come back and tell me what you think!
PS
Check this out! You can print your own cards with family members names or whatever! I’m SO doing this, but don’t tell, I want it to be a surprise.
