A board game company started by young creators from across India aims to relook at the Westernised narratives of games by introducing fresh, desi plotlines and ideas. We try their newly-launched debut party game
The writer and her friends try their hands at the newly launched game
Can you name six things that get stolen the most in India? Take a minute. Remember that if you give three wrong answers, you’ve lost the round. Are you ready with your list? The answers are: money/wallet, mobile phone, gold/jewellery, pen, footwear and heart. Funnily enough, when this writer asked her friends this question that forms part of a newly launched game Desi Feud, heart was the first answer they proposed; while when played with family, the natural instinct was to think of all things related to money.
The question cards; (right) strikeout cards. Pics/Devanshi Doshi
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Game on
Much like American game show host Steve Harvey’s Family Feud, one is required to match their answers with those listed on the cards. However, instead of the Americanised questions, here we have very desi ones like phrases commonly found written behind Indian trucks, movies in which Shah Rukh Khan was named Rahul, what women commonly wear to Indian weddings, things you hide at home, famous Indian superheroes or the famous Khans of Bollywood and so on. Each card (there are 134 in total) will have one question and six corresponding answers. The moment a team answers incorrectly, they get a strikeout card. Three strikeout cards will mean that the opponent team can steal the round by collectively suggesting the remaining answers. However, on failing to do so, the round will be declared null. The team to win five rounds wins the game.
Our experience
When this writer recently took the game over to a friends’ house party, it became an instant hit. We divided the group into two teams of six each. It was a tad chaotic in the beginning as team members started shooting answers on impulse without coordination and in turn ended up receiving strikeout cards as soon as the round began. By round three, they got a hang of it and volunteered a spokesperson from each team for the host to take answers from.
The game has 134 cards in total
Almost all cards carry at least one silly yet unpredictable answer, like a number plate for what’s usually found written behind trucks in the country, which leads to brain-racking and suggestions of sillier answers that is followed by rounds of light-hearted banter and laughter. The game makes you think on your feet as a team and can be enjoyed by all age groups. It is easy to carry along to parties because it consists only of cards, and is a surefire ice-breaker that promises to keep people engaged for hours.
Age group 14 and above
Log on to: : desiboardgames.com
Cost: Rs 1,499 (also available on Amazon)
Creator chat
The idea is to cater to the Indian board game community. We are a group of young [between 25 and 35-year-olds] enthusiasts, some of whom are consultants at tech firms like Google and Facebook. The first of the six games we launched this year is Desi Feud, which was made available across India from December 31, 2023.
We started out with a party game as a way to study the Indian market. Most of the team is currently based in the USA, where the board community is vast. The only drawback is that most games are Westernised, and are barely relatable to desi enthusiasts like us. We are now preparing to launch the game in America and other countries where Indians reside, and miss the tiny desi elements in their life. Next up is Raja Mantri Chor Sipahi, which will require political and social deduction skills. We will launch this game within the next two months.
Anoop Agrawal, 35, chairman
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