It’s maybe not worth $30, especially when you consider the low quality of the physical cards, so keep your eye out for a sale. It requires more imagination than you would expect, with a pile of well-designed cards that offer enough rope for every player in the game. Red Flags is less competitive party game and more jumping-off point for short-form improv. How could a person who knows exactly how to make you stop crying also be a revenge porn mogul? And why is the revenge porn thing not an immediate deal-breaker? The cards aren’t too specific, instead providing vague concepts that can be springboarded into wild psychological profiles. Like I said earlier, Red Flags works best with a group of open-minded friends, but it’s a testament to the game’s design that it gives players just enough to work with. If Red Flags wants to see any measure of long-term success, publisher Skybound Entertainment needs to make sure people can pull the core set out for years to come. They started to bend after a single game, something that never happened to my three-year old Cards Against Humanity set. Red Flags’ cards feel thin, even by the standard of wacky Kickstarted card games. You need friends who can be honest with each other, and if you need libations to make that happen, you do whatever you need to do.

Red Flags is a funny game with a lot of possibilities, but if you want to elevate your time with the game, you need honesty. When people get inebriated, lips get looser. I keep leaning on the drinking thing not because every card game is more fun in a group of drunks or stoners (although this is true).

Bonus points if the sauce has begun to flow. Of course, that burn only works if you’re really comfortable with your friends. Because apparently for them, there’s no such thing as a deal-breaker. Here’s what you do: during a round, you pull out a blank red flag from the deck and hand it to them. You love them, but they gotta up their standards. Maybe their long-term relationships are car wrecks waiting to happen. Maybe they’ve made out with a lot of real jerks. Your friend group probably has someone with really bad taste in partners.

Game red flags