We’ve all been on a road trip, family get-together or party with our friends when things start to lack enthusiasm. It’s not until someone suggests breaking out a board game that the traumatizing flashbacks of never ending games of Monopoly and UNO reappear in your mind. However, Ellen DeGeneres’s engaging game PSYCH! could not stray further from these childhood traumas. The Warner Bros. game debuted Oct. 8, 2015 and immediately received support from the public, racking up an editor’s choice on the App Store and a 4.7-out-of-5-star rating.
The app is a creative take on traditional trivia, where the players make up fake answers to real questions. The objective of the game is to “psych” your opponents into choosing the answer to the question that you contributed to the deck. The catch: mixed into the players’ fake answers is one correct answer to the trivia. In order to win points, you have to find out which one is the correct answer. You can also win points if your opponents choose your false answer as the right answer. Players can pick from an array of categories ranging from animals to movies, each with a deck of terms waiting to challenge the players.
The app is a creative fusion between Ellen’s previous app Heads Up! and the game night classic HQ. Having the players create their own answers gives them the opportunity to control the narrative and make the game as serious or as funny as they please. In addition, making the game mobile means lessening the hassle for set up and storage. Unlike easy to lose UNO cards and Monopoly dollars, everything you need to play PSYCH! can be found on the app.
In the same way that traditional board games bring out a competitive drive to win, the tricky prompts and responses in PSYCH! can turn an innocent family game night into a survival of the fittest contest. While luck may be the driving factor in emerging victorious from these pastimes, there are a few steps that newcomers to the app often overlook. So, here are a few tips to being successful in the game:
- Make sure your grammar is up to par when writing your answer. Having misspelled words and sporadically placed commas are a red flag that your answer is not the correct one.
- Don’t put an answer that you know another opponent will also put. Having two of the same responses will ensure that the players will not be fooled into choosing it.
- The weirder the better. Chances are the real answer to the trivia is not what you would expect it to be. So go ahead and conjure up a response that will leave your opponents second guessing.
You can download PSYCH! onto your iPhone or Android on the App Store or find the app on the Google Play Store.
