The Joy of Getting It Wrong
What Pictionary, Charades, and Telephone teach us about great party games.
In the best party games, the mistakes aren’t something to avoid; they’re the entertainment.
Think about what people actually laugh about afterward. Nobody remembers the Pictionary round where someone drew a perfect house, and their team guessed “house” in two seconds. They remember the drawing of a horse that looked like a potato, and the guesses that went from “dog” to “couch” to “whale.” In Charades, the funniest moments are when a teammate confidently shouts the wrong movie while the actor flails even harder. And Telephone has no other point at all: the whole game exists to hear how badly the message got mangled.
Figure This Out! works the same way. Each card is a visual puzzle hiding a familiar phrase, and the wrong guesses are often funnier than the right answer.
We’ve been posting Figure This Out! puzzles in several Reddit groups for nearly a year now. People love it when they correctly guess the meaning of a puzzle, but some of the most amusing moments come when they offer a silly answer.
Hint: A saying about being first.
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The early bird gets the worm.
Many people got this one right. Others had silly answers:
Nuclear fission creates erithacus hungry for nematode?
The second mouse gets the cheese.
Sleep late if you’re a worm.
Breakfast is the most important meal.
This isn’t too difficult a puzzle, so I’m pretty sure these posters knew the answer; they were just having fun.
When I post a difficult puzzle, it gets even more amusing:
A phrase about accepting mistakes.
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Humble Pie
Some examples:
Praying for dessert.
Gullible tart
Kneel for treat.
Praying for Apple Pie.
Fittingly, the answer is a saying about getting it wrong, which is the whole spirit of the game.
These Reddit replies are fun, but it’s even better in person. When I run one of my rolling focus groups, every wrong guess gets a laugh, and the same thing happens at parties.
The “aha!” moment of getting it right is great. But the laughs come from getting it wrong, and that’s what makes people want to play again.
Want to bring that kind of laughter to your next game night?
Be first in line for our Kickstarter!
Kickstarter pricing: $25 early bird (first 25 backers) · $27 regular · shipping added at checkout.
A full deck of 110 large 5" × 3.5" puzzle cards.
