How to Play Relative Insanity

You can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your family 4 to 12 players ages 14 and up

Relative Insanity is an Apples to Apples style game. But it is NOT for kids. In fact, you need to be a very open family to be able to play this game with your kids. Read the full review to see if it’s worth buying.

In this post we’ll cover the Relative Insanity set up, rules, how to play, expansions and give you our opinion of if you should add it to your family game shelf. Let’s get into it.

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Object of Relative Insanity

The Object of Relative Insanity is to collect red setup cards.

Setting Up

The set up is very simple.

First, there are two types of cards. There are the red cards which are the set up cards. These are the cards that players are trying to win. Next, there are the yellow punch line cards.

To start, each player is dealt seven punch line cards that they may look at.

Playing Relative Insanity

The first player, the judge, takes the top setup card and reads it out loud to the group. Next, all other players choose a card from their hands that they think makes the best joke. They place these cards face down on the table.

When all players have handed in their cards, the judge picks them up and shuffles. Next, he re-reads the setup card followed by the choices.

After much consideration—and a lot of laughs or groans—he chooses a card that he thinks is the best joke. The player who played that card wins the setup card that she then places to the side.

Next, the judge deals out a punchline card out to all the other players. The player to his left now takes over as judge. She takes the top setup card, reads it out loud and the process starts all over.

Winning Relative Insanity

The first player to win five setup cards wins the game.

The 14 Plus Rating

Apples to Apples is an easy family game, especially if you play the Junior version. So why does Relative Insanity have such a high age rating? It has to do with the content of the cards.

Example Set Up Cards:
“When they walked into the hotel room, my sister told her husband…”
“When the pediatrician was finished examining my nephew, he said…”
“On our wedding night in the heat of passion my wife/husband yelled…”

Although not too risky on their own, when you pair them with some punch line cards…you might have some explaining to do with younger kids.

Example Punch Line Cards:
“How about putting some teeth in that hole?”
“That is ugly even with all the light s out.”
“Why don’t you get a weed eater and trim that up a little bit?”

Some matches are funny, some insulting and some downright gross. We have yet to find a good place to play “I usually just stick my finger in and wiggle it around.”

The Relative Insanity Expansion Packs

We were able to pick up the Young Ins expansion pack to test it out. First, you can play the expansion on it’s own without the base game. It didn’t come with the game rules but if you’re familiar with this style of game then the rules aren’t needed. The pack comes with enough set up cards and punchline cards so that you can play with just them.

Now for the theme of the pack, it lived up to it’s name. All the cards were about kids. They were still meant for adults. Although this was good, it also created a problem in that some of the punchlines were very similar.

We haven’t had a chance to mix them all in together and see how they play but I think they will fit in nicely.

What We Like

First, we have a slightly twisted sense of humor in our family. Our girls are also teens (or almost). It is not unusual for us to trade insults as a way of bonding. So, the sense of humor in the game fits us.

We like the Apple to Apple style and that it changes every time you play. It takes only a minute to learn how to play and is easy enough for anyone to play.

There are five packs of punchline cards so there is plenty of playability.

The quality is good as is the box size.

What We Don’t Like

You have to be prepared for the potential of inappropriateness that comes with this game. I won’t lie; there are some cards that we’ve considered removing from play.

Next, if you play too many times in a row, the surprise of the setup cards loses something. (Note that to date we haven’t opened all packs of the punchline cards so this might change.)

So far, we’ve only been able to play with the four of us. This makes is hard sometimes to pick a good answer. We have tried to add a card from the top of the deck like we do in Apples to Apples but this has very limited success unlike with Apples where the deck has come close to wins a couples of times. I believe that it would be more fun with more people—but people who share the same sense of humor.

Is Relative Insanity Worth Adding to your Family Game Shelf?

If you have teens and a good relationship with them, then Relative Insanity will have you laughing until your sides hurt. It’s easy and a great party game. With the right people, we recommend adding Relative Insanity to your Family Game Shelf.

To get your joke on, get your copy of Relative Insanity here. (Canadians can shop for Relative Insanity here. Be sure to check out the expansion packs too.

To check out Apples to Apples read the review here. We love this style of game so much we created a line of Daily News games where players take turns being the editor in chief and gets to choose the headline that they like best. Check out Daily News here. You can get these and more seasonal and original games in our Family Game Shelf Shop here.

For more fun see our game reviews, card games and dice games too.

Rating:

Julia:

Carrie-Anne:

Pros: easy, funny, lots of cards
Cons: very adult, have to share sense of humor,
Mom: too embarrassed to say