Game Review: Joking Hazard

Author: Raevyn Tsornin, February 2017

Joking Hazard by Cyanide and Happiness is a card game similar to Cards Against Humanity. Many people are familiar with the web cartoons floating around the internet and Facebook. The card game uses their signature stick figures so players can make their own 3 panel cartoon. The game works best with a minimum of 3 human players and to me seems best with a maximum of 6 human players. This may be due to the seemingly small number of cards (when compared to having the main deck and 6 expansions of Cards Against Humanity).

To begin the game each human player takes 7 cards. Each round one person is the judge.

The judge takes a card from the draw pile and flips it up. This is the starter panel.

The judge then adds a card from his hand to form a two card panel.

Each player lays a card face down for the judge.

The judge turns up each card and reads it with the first two panels.

The judge chooses the winning card to be the punchline to the 3 card panel.

The player who played the winning card earns one point. The first player to score 3 points (or whatever your group decides as the score) wins.

There is one exception to the order the cards are played – if the card drawn first from the deck has a red border, it is automatically the punchline panel and everyone except the judge plays, face down, two cards that will set up the red lined card.

Again, the judge decides the winning combination.

A little background: Joking Hazard launched on Kickstarter on Feb 9, 2016 and was fully funded in 27 minutes. I jumped in a few days later and opted for the starter pack in the special Red Box Edition.

It came with two booster packs – one a thank you for supporting the Kickstarter campaign, the second the Blast from the Past pack which is available online.

The original game comes with 350 cards including 10 blanks to personalize, a set of rules with alternaterules and suggested drinking rules. They also encourage you to make up your own rules by general consensus.

The cards are high quality – as they say “can be burned for heat after society collapses” - and clean easily after spills of the liquid variety.

The game is irreverent, suggestive, graphic, and hilarious. This is definitely a game for adults.

Joking Hazard can be ordered here: https://store.explosm.net/products/joking-hazard-1?variant=32427746180 at the Cyanide and Happiness store and on Amazon.com.