Daring Contest

If you ever found truth or dare a bit boring but found it a great way to bond with friends, then Daring Contest is for you! I’ve been lucky enough to play this in several situations that all worked well. You can play this as a drinking game or totally sober. This game acts as a good bridge between extroverts and introverts too.

I find that this game is as good as you can get into it. I love being weird and silly with friends so I had no problem doing most dares and had a great time. Other people might not feel the same way. The best way to get around this is either to invite people to play you know who like dare games, or to lay down some ground rules. For example, for social media dares, we created a group chat of everyone at the game, and posted anything into that group chat. Friends still got funny pictures and posts, but it won’t ruin you on the internet forever. And that allows you to be more free with the dares.

How to Play

The premise is similar to Cards Against Humanity. Each player will have a hand of 5 dare cards. Each turn a modifier card is turned over from the deck so all players can see. Players will place next to the turn’s modifier card to make the dare combination that the tsar of round most wants to see.

Each dare card will have a point value assigned 1-5. Some dares will be solo dares and others will be challenge dares (shown with an exclamation mark).

The tsar will choose their favourite date combination. The player who put the dare card down will reveal themselves. If the dare is a solo one, the player who placed it must complete the card to get the points. If it’s a challenge, anyone can choose to do the dare. The person who does a challenge dare the best, decided by the tsar, will receive the points. If someone doesn’t want to do the dare they put down, or they complete a solo dare badly, the tsar can choose to give a player a penalty card. This tends to be funny but tame penalties such as ‘Pretend you suspect someone at the table is a spy and you want to find out who’ or ‘Play without using your hands’.

The player who won the points that round (or had their card picked if no dare was done) will become the next card star. You then play until the first to () points.

I enjoy this game and would play this more often if I had the chance. However, I’d say only about half of the people I’ve played this game with would choose to play this again. For people who don’t enjoy dares unfortunately this will be an uncomfortable game for them. But this game is accessible for people who like those sorts of games but have boundaries. The game has a mechanic for people who want to skip a dare (penalty cards) which are removed when they successfully complete a dare. This means people with different personalities can play without feeling too pressured to do anything they don’t want to.

How Dare Points are Usually Grouped

1 point: For truths.

2 points: Weird and funny, usually with improv but sometimes physical dares too.

3 points: Mix of physical and acting dares, but usually requiring you to dig deeper than 2 point dares.

4 points: Ones that start to definitely require some overcoming of shame. Like karaoke or social media-related dares.

5 points: This is where it can start to get sexual. Many of my friends were put off by some of these, but hey, they still had fun with other dares they had. Still some extremely weird ones and social media-related ones. And none of the dares take themselves that seriously.

Sub – Ratings

Creativity: Some of the dares are more traditional, but many are very weird in a way that gets people’s brains going, and you can see some hilarious renditions of dares.

Art: Cute and minimalist, but I think that matches the game. Nobody will want to play because of the art, but it serves its purpose well.

Memory-Making: I’d say most games I played created some long-lasting memories that will stay with me as long as I know my friends. Some games this didn’t happen, but if everyone gets stuck in, memories that make you chuckle out of nowhere are bound to happen at some point.

Variety of Cards: I’ve never had to use the discard pile for more dare cards in a single game, and I’ve played with 8 people before. A lot of games can become repetitive because you see the same cards being played, but I think daring Contest got the balance right. This includes penalty and modifier cards too. Every game I’ve played feels fresh.