dude

Seemingly inspired by Jeff Bridges’ character in The Big Lebowski, dude takes one single word – dude – and tries to make it mean many different things.

In the box are a set of cards for each player. Every card has the word ‘dude’ written on it, but in various forms and spellings: doooode – dude. – dude with a rainbow background. dude in tiny font. There are several dudes.

Play is super-simple. Everyone shuffles their decks and flips the deck over so they – and only they – can see the top card. Then everyone – at the same time – starts saying the word dude as written: dude with a full stop, small dude, laid-back dooode, rainbow dude and so on. If you feel someone else is looking at the same card you are, because they seem to be saying the word dude in the same way, you can say sweet. If they also say sweet, you compare cards: if the cards match, both players place them face-down on the table in front of themselves: they’re worth a point. If the cards don’t match, they discard them face-up to the middle of the table. If you find that nobody seems to be saying dude in the same manner that you are, you can put your current card to the bottom of your deck and try the next one.

So for five minutes everyone is saying dude to each other.

This madness continues until someone has scored (or discarded) their last card, at which point they say chill and the game ends. Or – as we have found – players may agree to stop if it seems like no matches are possible. The player with the most cards in front of them – matched ‘dudes’ – is the winner.