I Thought I Knew My Friends Until I Played This Ridiculously Fun Game
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Earlier this summer, my friend Laura and her husband Nic hosted a small cookout at their new Brooklyn apartment. The guest list was just me and our friends Mary Beth and Eloise, who all worked together at a very toxic job more than 15 years ago. We toured the apartment, enjoyed dinner and drinks in the backyard, and then Laura invited us inside to play Priorities — a card game that none of us had ever heard of before. She explained that the game tests how well you know the other players. So we played a few rounds and learned a couple of things: It’s ridiculously entertaining, and after 15-plus years of friendship, we hardly knew each other at all.
The premise of Priorities is to rank five items in the order that you love or loathe them, then have the other players guess how you prioritized them. It can be played by two or more people and comes with 200 “everyday item” cards, a mini erasable whiteboard, and a marker. To play, one person is chosen as the “target player” and selects five cards. They then lay the cards face-up so everyone can see the topics — for example, licorice, noisy kids, personal hygiene, Kim Kardashian, and fireworks. The target player uses the whiteboard to secretly rank these items from their most to least favorite while the other players work together to arrange the five cards in the order they think will match.
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The scoring system is different from most games because players aren’t competing against each other but against the game itself. You’re really all on the same team. Every card that correctly matches the ranking order on the whiteboard goes to the group, and the incorrect ones go to the game. The cards are then flipped over; on the back of each is one letter that’s used to spell the word “priorities.” The object of the game is for the players to spell out the entire word with their cards before the game does.
Laura, Eloise, Mary Beth, and I have seen each other through weddings, births, and surgeries, yet on the evening that we played Priorities, it was as if we were strangers again. I had no idea that Eloise liked vintage clothes more than Pilates. In fact, I had no idea that she liked vintage clothes at all. And while I know that Mary Beth likes sharing feelings, I couldn’t decide if it meant more to her than wooly sweaters (she loves to crochet). While I struggled to figure out my friends, they were just as perplexed when it came to me. I am a proud curmudgeon who is irritated by everything, so they had a tough time determining the order in which I detested Karens, the beach, whistling, a reply-all, and mankinis (for the record, I don’t mind whistling).
As soon as I got home that night, I hopped online and ordered Priorities for myself. Since then, it’s been my plus-one at summer get-togethers with friends, and I’ve also tucked it into my carry-on so I could play it when visiting family, where, during one memorable session, my Italian cousin revealed his love of Hawaiian pizza. It’s been a hit every time. And the best part? The game never ends in fights, just fits of laughter.
Some more games we love
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