Party games are fucking awful

Agreed. Brought Secret Hitler on vacation with a bunch of friends and almost everyone loved it after a few rounds. I now have to make sure I bring my set to most parties I attend, its been in high demand ever since.

I also recommend the games "Werewolf", and "Avalon" for a similar feel to Secret Hitler. Has similar elements of social deduction.

As much as I love The Resistance and its variants, Secret Hitler has basically replaced it for me. The way Secret Hitler disseminates information is more interesting and creates more interesting situations, keeping all the disagreements one to one rather than letting multiple people gang up quite easily.

Werewolf and Mafia just feel too slow at this point, unless you're talking about One Night Werewolf, although One Night Revolution is also a pretty big improvement on that in my experience.

Do you honestly think we give a shit about your opinion when you've posted nothing more than "i don't like it so it's bad "

>Jackbox Party Pack
Seconding this. All three of them have some pretty good winners, and many of the games support more than four players. There's pretty much something for everyone, though some of the games (like Quiplash) admittedly have the same problems as something like CAD in that it really depends on the tone of the group you're playing with.

Party games are only as good as the people you're playing with.
I've sat through several awful games of CAH, I always thought the game was just shit until I played with a group of friends who weren't just a bunch of random drunk assholes. It was a lot of fun just saving all of the worst cards to make the quiet, shy girl say them out loud.

It's still not a great game but it's still fun with the right people. Same goes for any tabletop, I'd blame the group for being shitty more than the game

We get it, your group lacks imagination.

>Same goes for any tabletop
What are you talking about? Yes, CAH is a shit game that is only as fun as the people playing it are, but there are loads of games that are actually good games. The group I play with is a great group and we pretty much always have fun, but since we realize we can have just as much fun with another game (or without a game), we avoid terrible, terrible games like CAH. At least codenames call for *actual* creativity and knowing eachother well enough to have mind-reading level clues.

Codenames is totally a party game. It's simple to play and to teach, and mostly you can learn just by watching. It has loads of built-in downtime for table chatter it can be played at any player count. Ultimately the only requirement for a party game is "does it play well at parties"

However anyone who likes the base gameplay of Codenames, hates how Codenames is always slow and boring, and is in the market for 2-player games, check out Codenames Duet. Much better experience

Exploding Kittens is a fun game once you can stop cringing at the Reddit-tier 'lolrandom' humour.

Mysterium is a party game I love, and the digital implementation is actually pretty good.

It's a game about asymmetrical communication, essentially. One player is a Ghost, who has information on murderers, locations and murder weapons they need to feed to a team of occult investigators. The trouble is, they can't speak. Instead, they have a deck full of Dream cards, full art cards with these bizarre, trippy images on them. You need to select cards to give the right clues to the right investigator to help them pick the right person, place or weapon, building up towards a final test of discovering the murderer.

As you might imagine, it's a glorious mess. As the ghost, you will be facepalming so hard at some of the stupid leaps of logic, as your perfectly rational clues are wildly misinterpreted time and time again. It's great fun.

Exploding Kittens isn't a game. The art is cute and it's a fun timewaster but it's completely lacking in anything resembling actual gameplay.

Also Bears vs Babies is way better.

Resistance: Avalon, Secret Hitler and ONUW are pretty much the only modern werewolf/mafia games worth playing unless 10+ players

Should be pointed out that it is fully co-op. The investigators are allowed to discuss what they think the cards mean.

Also, the ghost gets a couple of crows it can use to draw new cards a couple of times during the game, which lets the ghost go "CAWWW CAWWW CAWWW", and that's great.

Jungle Speed (and similar titles).

Everyone takes turn flipping up cards from their decks. If colors or shapes match someone else, those two are in a duel; the first one to grab the wooden thingy in the middle of the table wins the duel and the loser has to add the winner's played cards to their deck. The goal is to get rid of all your cards.

Always fun to guess who will draw first blood.

The only party game I enjoy is this one: youtube.com/watch?v=2RhaBv3vEao

We play it a lot and always go for really obscure stuff. It's pretty fun.

I hate cards against humanity but my friends often insist on playing it, but we try to make it somewhat enjoyable. Usually it isn't though.

Wow, you don't go to a lot of parties, do you user? The point of party games isn't to be good games, it's to be fun at parties. They're just a thing to do while you spend time with people whose company you enjoy already (and/or drink). Party games need to:
>Be simple and quick to learn
>Be easy to follow
>Have short games or rounds
>Be easy to jump in or out of (overlaps with the last one)
>Require minimal thought or concentration
>Require zero prep work or planning
>Be open-ended enough to play repeatedly without getting samey
>Be played basically anywhere
>Have a play area that can be knocked around a little

Let's see you try to make a good game within those restrictions

>I've never been to a party. Do people really interact with each other there?

Does Coup count as a hidden-role game? My group likes that one a lot.

Coup is a game that uses hidden identities mechanics, but it isn't exactly a hidden role game.

That's a good game.
Has anyone played Evolution the Beginning? It hits that sweet spot of being complex enough to be interesting but simple enough to easy to play.
Basically, you all make new species and modify them with cards like 'speed', 'flight' and 'burrowing, etc. It's really good at emphasising survival of the fittest, you really have to adapt.
I'm tempted to get the bigger, more complicated version. Any opinions on it?

How's ONUW? I've read the rules but I don't like the idea of having to use an app

Damn, must be hard finding games for the local autism social support group.

Codenames are literally Metagaming: The Game
I've seen couple score 5 cards when one of them hinted "me".

That's pretty cute.