You Can Now Play Cards Against Humanity Online With Your Mates Joanna Freedman in News Last updated 8:27, Wednesday 06 January 2021 GMT Those of you with a naturally dark sense of humour will be pleased to learn that there's a way to put these skills to good use as you while away the hours in lockdown three. Dec 21, 2020 You can play Cards Against Humanity online if you want, without having to buy a set of cards and see your opponents in real life. So if your typical Christmas celebrations include a game or two. Jackbox Games is the king of online party games, having released dozens of.
30 March 2020, 12:40
Up to six people can play Cards Against Humanity on Playingcards.io – and you can even set up a voice or video call for extra laughs.
Since we've all been staying at home during the coronavirus quarantine, everyone has had to find creative ways of keeping busy and staying in touch with loved ones.
From using Netflix Party to host group viewing sessions of your fave TV shows, or downloading the Houseparty app and hosting quizzes, families and friendship groups have been doing all sorts of wholesome stuff to make sure they keep in contact.
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But enough of that wholesome content for a sec because there's a now way for the not-so-wholesome grown ups amongst us to have some fun too.
Fancy playing Cards Against Humanity with your mates? Well, now you can. Online. For free. And here's how to do it...
How to play Cards Against Humanity online
Playingcards.io, which is an online card game website, has multiple different games that you can play. One of those games is Cards Against Humanity.
If you don't know what Cards Against Humanity is, here's a quick explainer: Cards Against Humanity is 'a party game for horrible people'. Each round, one player asks a question from a black card, and everyone else answers with their funniest – and often offensive – white card. It's very much a game for adults and definitely not one to play with your parents. Unless your parents have the same level of questionable humour as you.
Anyway, once you click into the game on the site, you'll be able to create a virtual playing room. The site will give you a link, which you then send to your friends so they can join the game.
Up to six players can join the game, and you can even set up a voice or video call too, to get the full experience.
Much like if you've ever played Scrabble as a group on an iPad, the site allows everyone to see the game, but only you can see the cards in your hand.
There's many different ways to play Cards Against Humanity, but here's the basics:
Players start by selecting 10 white cards from the pile and dragging them to the bottom of the screen. Here, you will be able to see all your answer options. After every round, you should always have 10 cards in your hand.
Each round, one person becomes the judge. That person will select a black card. The first judge can be chosen based on any random thing you as a group decide – like whoever went to the toilet last. (Yes, those are really the rules.)
Once the judge has selected a black card, the other players will then choose their best white card, and drag it to the middle, ready to be judged.
The judge will then flip over those cards, read them out one by one and make their winning decision based on who was the funniest or most outrageous.
The winner of that round will then keep the black card. The person with the most black cards at the end of the game, wins!
Happy gaming, you filthy animals!
© Provided by TechRadar Cards Against Humanity onlineThere are many reasons to play Cards Against Humanity online instead of in person, and it's very simple to do so - if you want to recreate the experience of the popular card game without actual social contact, there are plenty of options.
Other things to do online
These methods of playing Cards Against Humanity online don't mean you need to buy a pack of the cards, or any fancy gadgets - in fact, some of these options are totally free. All you need is a computer or smartphone, and possibly also a webcam if you want people to see your cringing face too.
If you're stuck at home away from people, you might quickly run out of things to do - the best board games only last so long, listening to music with people online doesn't keep feeling personal forever, and mobile games to play with family get old when you're sick to death of your loved ones.
It's great then that everyone's favorite nihilistic game, Cards Against Humanity, can be played online.
Cards Against Humanity is a popular card game (no points for guessing that) which challenges players to come up with funny answers to a question in order to win rounds. You don't need to be witty, or absurd, in order to win - this is a game where being inappropriate is the way to win.
If you're playing on a smartphone, maybe a tablet with a bigger screen will be useful? Check out our list of the best tablets, as well as the best iPads and best Android tablets.
But those packs you're playing Cards Against Humanity with don't need to be physical ones, and it's very possible to play the game online with people on your computer or smartphone, or even play against an AI supercomputer that might make you laugh once or twice.
We'll take you through a few options you've got. So set up your video call, get those friends or family ready, and boot up one of these websites.
© Provided by TechRadar (Image credit: Shutterstock)Cards Against Humanity on CAH Store If you've seen all these options and still want to buy a physical set of Cards Against Humanity, because you like real objects or just want to support the creators, the game's store has sets for you. In addition its extra boxes with 300 cards, or smaller themed expansions with 30 cards, are all available too.
How to play Cards Against Humanity online: your three options
- Playingcards.io: it's simple to set up, but also a little simplistic in play
- Pretend You're Xyzzx: this is more complicated to organize, but all the expansions are here and you can fit more players
- Cards Against Humanity Labs: a single-player experience testing future cards out.
- All Bad Cards: a new Cards Against Humanity site that seems very reliable.
- Just printing the cards out yourself: don't rely on tech.
How to play Cards Against Humanity Online: our guides
© Provided by TechRadar (Image credit: PlayingCards)Option 1: Playingcards.io
Players: 1-6 | Expansions: None
You can see what others are doing
If you just want to jump into a game of Cards Against Humanity online with a few friends, we'd recommend this option as it's the simplest, although there are no expansions and the software is... well, simple.
To use it, head to playingcards.io, head down to 'Remote Insensitivity' and click it. (We know, this isn't the name of the game you were expecting to play, we'll get to that). Then click 'Start Game', share that link with your co-carders so they can jump in too and select 'Enter Game'.
Now you've got a digital card board, with black and white cards at the top (with discard piles), space to play white cards in the middle, winning piles for your black cards to the left and right, and a large white box at the bottom. This white box is your private area, as no-one else can see cards here, while they can everywhere else.
The computer isn't going to play the game for you, and in playing cards you have to deal, move cards about, and discard by yourself. This recreates the feel of playing it in real life, but it can be a bit of a nuisance that the game isn't automated for you.
It's possible to see where your co-carders' mouses or fingers are too (as this works whether you're playing on computer or smartphone, and the players can be on either), so you can see who's dealing or if someone is trying to peek at cards you've played.
So why are you playing 'Remote Insensitivity' instead of 'Cards Against Humanity'? Well, we'll quote the website itself from a tweet on the matter. 'In order to comply with the CAH trademark, we're substituting the game with 'Remote Insensitivity'. It has all the same cards thanks to the CAH card text being licensed under Creative Commons'. So this is still a valid way of playing Cards Against Humanity.
Play: head to this website
© Provided by TechRadar (Image credit: Pretend You're Xyzzy)Option 2: Pretend You're Xyzzy
A more complicated but expansive alternative
Players: 3-20 | Expansions: All
Pretty complicated to set up
There are some limitations on the previous entry that this option fixes: namely, you can fit far, far more people in a game, and also you can use any of the numerous expansions should you wish.
Pretend You're Xyzzy is a version of cards against humanity that may not look great, but lends itself to a better experience if you want depth of play. Head to the website, find yourself a unique username, click 'Create Game' in the top left corner, share your URL to your friends so they can join too, and while you wait customize the options you want to play.
When enough people have joined, you can kick off and play that game with as many expansions and extra rules as you like, like a time multiplier or points limit. You can also let people be spectators, and watch without playing.
Pretend You're Xyzzy has a chat log so you don't actually need to be on a video call to play, and you can set a password if you don't want certain friends joining. However, the UI doesn't exactly look as pretty as the alternatives on this list.
Play: head over to this website
© Provided by TechRadar (Image credit: Cards Against Humanity)Option 3: Cards Against Humanity Lab
Players: One | Expansions: Just future cards
Your online friend is a computer
Cards Against Humanity has its own way to play online, of sorts, but it's not exactly a social experience.
CAH Lab is an AI that plays you a black card, and gives you a selection of white cards. You have to choose the funniest, or proclaim that none are funny, and keep playing. The point of this is not for you to have fun, but for the AI to learn which cards are best, but it's still a pretty enjoyable experience if no-one's around to play.
The CAH AI can come up with some pretty spectacular choices, and it can be familiar to anyone who plays the base game with the 'Rando Cardissian' rule, which involves playing an extra white card each turn on behalf of a ghostly extra.
Lots of the cards that you find in the CAH Lab are ones that aren't actually in the game packs. This can give you an insight into future expansions, and can be refreshing when games with the base pack quickly become routine. Some of them are... less than funny though.
Play Cards Against Humanity Online Game
Play: head over to this website
Play Cards Against Humanity Online
© Provided by TechRadar (Image credit: All Bad Cards)Option 4: All Bad Cards
A new contender
Players: ? | Expansions: ?
No instructions for newbies
While the prior entries on this list are long-standing sites, All Bad Cards was created for all the people looking for online versions of Cards Against Humanity during the coronavirus pandemic.
The game is created by member of Bungie's team (developers of Halo and Destiny) and feels a little smoother and easier to use than the prior entries of this list. The game is more automated too, and you don't have to drag the cards around yourself, making it better for people who aren't so tech-savvy.
It's not entirely clear if expansions are included in the game (maybe people who know which cards are part of the expansions would know), or the max number of players, but unlike some of the other entries on this list you can play it with two people if you just want to mess about with funny combinations.
Play: head over to this website.
© Provided by TechRadar (Image credit: Shutterstock)Option 5: Use the internet to print off the cards
Players: As many as you want | Expansions: None
You don't need to use a computer
If a computer or smartphone is something you use only begrudgingly, you don't need to play a whole game of Cards Against Humanity on it if you don't want, as you can actually print off the cards from the game's website.
If you head to cardsagainsthumanity.com one of the top options is to view a PDF of all the cards. Simply open this, print if off (check out this guide if you need to buy a printer) and cut the sheet into the cards. The Cards Against Humanity Family Edition is also available this way.
Only the base game is available to print off, so if you want expansions you're going to have to buy them, and of course printing out loads of paper isn't exactly eco-friendly, so perhaps this is better as a last recourse if computers aren't for you.
Play: head over to this website.