Otherfoot: Only Pen and Paper Required

November 12, 2015 11:23 AM

Otherfoot: Only Pen and Paper Required [via mefi projects] A concise ruleset for a DIY Roll-Your-Own kind of Apples-To-Apples type game.
posted by Greg Nog (19 comments total)

This makes me so happy!
Hey, nobody's perfect.
posted by the_blizz at 11:28 AM on November 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm looking forward to this
perhaps i need new friends?
posted by rebent at 11:34 AM on November 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

So: smarter than Apples to Apples, but less inherently mean-spirited than Cards Against Humanity? I'm on board.
posted by Cash4Lead at 11:52 AM on November 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

I like this quietly disposing of boring cards business.

I like the idea of unquietly disposing of them also, and making that part of the game.

I imagine this getting out of hand and everything turning into Card Death.
posted by louche mustachio at 12:21 PM on November 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

Excellent. Now we need a site with an online version like "Pretend You're Xyzzy", the one for CAH. Because I am seriously antisocial and most of my current IRL friends can't be trusted with pen and paper.

from the FAQ:
Why is the game called Otherfoot?
Legend has it, “other foot” was simply the phrase on the card that came up when the Old Ones were deciding what to name the game.
I'd prefer it if there were a complicated backstory with one of the early players in the bad habit of prefacing the reading of all his response cards with "On the other hand..." and Otherfoot just being a deterrent for him. Because I could've been that annoying person.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:34 PM on November 12, 2015

Any game that has me scribbling half-assed and incomplete "witticisms" on index cards is basically meth for me. Sold.
posted by middleclasstool at 12:42 PM on November 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

Well, now I need to make 2 - 5 friends.
posted by meese at 1:09 PM on November 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

It also reminds me of The Metagame, but making your own cards sounds more fun.
posted by wintersweet at 1:11 PM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hooray! Glad this made it to the front page. In case y'all missed it in the Projects post, I also created an Otherfoot Bot on Twitter using Cheap Bots Done Quick. And if you're interested in pen & paper games, you might also like Telephone Pictionary (a.k.a. Eat Poop You Cat). I created a "correspondence edition" of the game to play by snail mail. Info here and scans here.

Considering setting up a DC Mefi meetup for otherfoot & related games...
posted by duffell at 2:07 PM on November 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

Or if you'd rather throw some Fluxx into the mix, there's 1000 Blank White Cards.
posted by rikschell at 2:41 PM on November 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

I played (roughly) this game with a big group of friends in a tiny house in Berkeley once years ago and still think back on it fondly. I'd heard of Apples to Apples, but never actually played it. We opened up a lot of bottles of two buck chuck and drank wine and chatted until we had a big enough pile of cards. Some genius made a card for "the feeling you get when you see a bunny" that was one of my favorites. And "real" Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity has never felt as fun as that game.
posted by duien at 2:51 PM on November 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

Oh yes! This looks fun.
posted by threeants at 4:46 PM on November 12, 2015

I will try this at happy hour today. Yay!
posted by Literaryhero at 5:49 PM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Fantastic idea. It reminds me of 1000 Blank Cards (which I have wanted to play for YEARS!) but a bit lower-stakes with respect to the card creation - maybe I'll finally be able to talk some friends into playing a game where you make up your own cards.

My second-biggest beef with CAH is that the cards get boring; it's vaguely amusing the first two times you play it but amusement quickly drops off after that.
posted by invokeuse at 8:02 PM on November 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Wow. I read the rules once and they are simple enough that I'll remember them. I don't have to bookmark the page. Great feature!
posted by alms at 10:35 AM on November 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

we played this last night! it was quite good. I think we needed to figure out some better rules about who can get rid of cards, when. But, yeah, very good game!
posted by rebent at 3:45 PM on November 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

When it comes to getting rid of cards, it depends on the group. If you all know each other well, and there aren't any big egos in the room, you can do a quick "cleanup" by running through the deck together between games and determining by consensus whether to keep each card or trash it.

If you're worried about hurting others' feelings (either because you don't know the people you're playing with, or because you do know them), I've found this combination of house rules to be helpful:

• If you're the author of a card that's not working out as you'd hoped, you don't need to ask permission--you can just trash it.
• If you either don't understand a card, or have been holding onto it for several turns and haven't found a way to use it, you can shuffle it into the deck (or discard pile) and draw a replacement.

That's usually enough right there, because:

1. If a card is a dud, usually the author is the person who's most eager to trash it.
2. It's not any fun to have cards taking up space in your hand if you can't figure out a good use for them--and this game should be fun!
3. Someone's inability to play a card isn't necessarily a judgment of the card; it just means that player hasn't been able to find the humor in it. You don't necessarily need to trash it; just recycle it.

posted by duffell at 11:57 AM on November 16, 2015

(These house rules assume no one in your group is writing cards that are egregiously offensive to other players... but again, who you play with is the best indicator of whether you're going to have a good time.)
posted by duffell at 12:01 PM on November 16, 2015

I tried this at at a bar the other night -- everyone caught on right away, and it was fun. Thank you for this!
posted by spacewaitress at 1:26 PM on November 18, 2015