Friendship-testing board games

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: LAM LE
True friendship is measured by how much you like each other after a round of Monopoly.

Board game nights are a great way to get together with friends for a night in. Just order some pizza, play some catchy music, and prepare for some good old fashioned betrayal.

Wait, what? Prepare for betrayal? Yes. I said what I said.

Any game is competitive by nature, and having some competitive spirit makes the gameplay more enjoyable if you’re with the right group of friends. No matter how much being competitive is second nature, however, there are some games that will test the limits of your friendship. Feel free to play any and all of these games on your next board game night, but don’t say nobody warned you.

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Pandemic

In Pandemic, up to four players work together to eradicate viruses before a pandemic occurs.

It might seem odd to include a barely competitive co-op game on this list, but a great team requires great collaboration skills. Anyone who has ever done a group project knows that just because you’re friends, it doesn’t always mean you work well as a team.

Luckily, I had a positive experience playing Pandemic with my closest friends, but I can’t speak for every Pandemic player.

Unstable Unicorns

Don’t let the cute and colourful cards fool you. Unstable Unicorns can get intense. The objective is to build your unicorn army before your opponents beat you to it, and try to take the opposing unicorn armies down.

Between blocking your opponents’ actions with the Neigh and Super Neigh cards, turning their unicorn herd into a panda herd and other tricks, you can expect your friends questioning your actions and/or tossing their deck of cards in frustration before they leave the room.

Cards Against Humanity

If there’s any game where you question your friends’ values and sense of humour and they question yours, it’s Cards Against Humanity.

It’s not a problem when other players happen to share your awful sense of humour, but proceed with caution when playing this game with people who don’t.

Granted, all of the cards were written by someone else, but you picked the offensive combination of cards. The person with the most winning combination of cards wins the game, so it’s disheartening when your card combo isn’t picked and you wonder why no one else thought it was funny.

Risk

Playing Risk with your friends is exactly that. Your friends will convince you to form an alliance with them, only to take out your army in the next turn. Every move you make should be with caution as all of the other players are calculating their next attack.

Monopoly and its many versions

For some reason, everyone has their own idea of how Monopoly should work.

It’s brutal enough to discover your dream home was already scooped up by someone in real life. The expression ‘relax, it’s just a game’ need not apply when you’re house-hunting in a board game — especially if people have their own rules when playing.

There are several variations of Monopoly where you buy other items unrelated to real estate, but those versions are not safe either. Dog-opoly involves buying dogs, for example, and people will take advantage of knowing you have a favourite breed and buy it before you have a chance.

Uno

Proceed with caution when playing Uno. There’s a reason why people say this classic card game ends friendships. You’ll understand after playing.

You can find all of these games on amazon.ca, if you dare.