There are, in the world of gaming, a few companies who stand out for being masters of their domain. CMoN, for instance, have a name that goes well with awesome miniatures games. Fantasy Flight have created and patented the living card game with Arkham Horror, Legend of the Five Rings, and A Game of Thrones. Wizards of the Coast are known for collectable card games and D&D. These are companies behind the production of great genres of games, encouraging the growth of that genre within the marketplace.

I have mentioned before on this blog that Big Potato Games are one such company for me. The London based board game team were the brains behind games such as The Chameleon, Bucket of Doom, and (one of our most played games of all time) Scrawl. They are, to put it plainly, absolutely acing the adult gaming space.

Our Big Potato Collection – Mr Listers, Scrawl, Weird Things Humans Search For, Truth Bombs, Bucket of Doom, and The Chameleon

What Big Potato specialise in is a genre of gaming we know as party games. These are games that are designed for groups of people and gatherings where the goal of the game is simply to have a good time. These are games that show non-hardcore gamers that board games can be fun again, even after the childhood memories of five hour long games of Monopoly.

Big Potato are a company that burst onto the scene in 2014 with Bucket of Doom and have continued to carve a name for themselves in the industry ever since. Now, according to that repository of great board game knowledge, BGG, Big Potato have released 16 games, ranging from games about telling stories to drawing games to what we will be talking about today.

Enter – Weird Things Humans Search For.

Weird Things Humans Search For

How To Play Weird Things Humans Search For

Weird Things Humans Search For (which I may or may not from this point simply refer to as Weird Things) is a quiz style game based around, yes, you guessed it – search engines. It is a game for 3-20 people, in which players are split into teams and a Search Master reads out the first part of a real life search query. The players then make two guesses as to what the most common searches may be.

This means a card may be (and I genuinely picked this at random): “Has a person ever been…”

It is then up to the players to guess what the most common answers may be. These are written down as their main answer and a bonus answer.

So, a team might write down “(Main) …to the top of Everest (Bonus) …to Mars”.

If that team gets their main answer right they will get 4 points if it tops the list as the most searched for query. If it is elsewhere on the list it will get 2 points. If their bonus answer is on the list, they will get 1 point, no matter where it appears.

So, the weird things humans search for, in this case, are actually:

“Has a person ever been…”

• born with a tail
• cloned
• in a black hole
• mailed
• lost in space
• swallowed by a whale
• eaten by a snake
• taxidermied
• to Mars
• hit by a meteor

The players, in this case, would have not got their main answer of “…to the top of Everest” because it is not on the list. They would, however, get a point for their bonus answer of “…to Mars”.

The game is played over five rounds and the team or person with most points at the end wins.

One of our favourite cards in Weird Things Humans Search For

What’s It Like Playing Weird Things Humans Search For?

A Game Of Comedy

It kind of goes without saying that Weird Things Humans Search For has the potential to be an incredibly comedic game. Some of the searches really throw you off when you read them, in both a comedic and human way (which I will move on to talk about in a bit) that can make you really chuckle. Yes there are some crude searches in there, however, there is plenty of comedy aside from the obvious.

Every time we have played Weird Things Humans Search For we have found it entertaining and funny. We’ve played it mainly with three or four people, which is a size that is considered small for a game that goes from 3-20; however, we have always had a good laugh. I can’t comment on what it is like with a much larger group yet, but I can only assume that as the player count increases, so does the comedy.

I think this is one of the greatest strengths of the game. Weird Things mixes humour and whimsy, forcing you to use your imagination to try and come up with relevant answers. This means the humour actually comes from two places in the game – what the cards actually say and what the players guess are on the cards.

The point is though that the humour is only as limited as your own imagination, spirit, and what you believe humans search for.

Does Santa Claus…

A Game For Humans

Of course, there is another way of looking at the game.

It sounds strange, but Weird Things Humans Search For is that it is one of the most personal and human quizzes I have ever come across. When you think about it, the things we search reveal our biggest hopes, dreams, fears, wonders, and desires. I drew a really random one as an example earlier, but some of the other cards can really play on the heart strings when you think about them. There are also questions that really compel you to go away and Google the answer yourself.

Some of the questions are amongst the most personal questions other people could possible ask about themselves and the world they live in. Amongst all the humour of the game, all of the bum questions and queries about whether farting is misogynistic, is a really real human core.

I love that, and due to this truly human feel, have actually found myself falling in love with this game, because it is not like any other quiz. Weird Things is not about general knowledge, like Trivial Pursuit as an example, nor is it about making things up like in Cards Against Humanity. Instead, Weird Things is about what we, as human beings, want to know the most.

How to make someone…

The Little Quiz That Keeps On Giving

There are a lot of cards that come with Weird Things, so much so you will have to play the game a lot before it begins to feel like questions are repeating themselves. It also feels like a game you can take a lot away from, making it a deeper experience than a lot of other adult party games. It is, as you can see, very easy to take more than just comedy from the experience.

Weird Things Humans Search For is a quiz. It is ideal for gatherings of friends and casual gamers who want a laugh with a little more to it. It is challenging and balances comedy and quiz incredibly well.

That being said, if you want more of a traditional quiz, this probably isn’t it. It is lots of fun and a good laugh, but it isn’t a traditional general knowledge game (unless you consider it general knowledge of the human condition). No matter your preferred style of quiz, Weird Things Humans Search For is something worth trying, but you will probably get more out of it if you approach it more from the perspective of someone wanting a collective comedic experience than someone who wants a challenging quiz. If you want a challenging quiz then go for Trivial Pursuit. That game is impossible.

Is it possible to…

So, there we have it. Weird Things Humans Search For is a very fun, comedic, little quiz. It can provide a good couple of hours of fun in one sitting, and is appropriate for teenagers and adults alike.

On one final note – what is your favourite quiz game? Let me know in the comments below.

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Published by Luke

Board game nerd, comic book geek, Rubik's Cube solver, Splendor player, and Blogger. View all posts by Luke