Charades is a game as old as time itself, but Identity Games is bringing a fresh take to the classic with an additional player to any team—the Dude.
If you’re wondering, “Who’s the Dude?” then prepare yourself for one of the newest, hilarious party games out there.
The Dude is everyone’s best friend in this game, where players act out charades with this inflatable doll. Best for players ages 16 and up, this game challenges players to act out movie scenes, professions, love ballads, and other ridiculous activities using the Dude. The game comes with charade cards, an inflatable dude, score sheets, and a repair patch (in case something bad happens to Dude, which I hope doesn’t happen!).
The Dude itself is 4 feet and 11 inches tall, making this life-sized inflatable a real hoot while playing charades. He wears a green muscle tee, short shorts, crew-length socks, a sweatband, and aviators. In all honestly, Dude looks like every male I went to high school with. #LongIsland. If players really wanted to get into it, they could throw on a pair of aviators and a white sweatband to truly get the party started. You can name your Dude whatever you like, but we fondly still called him “Dude” when we played in the office.
First thing’s first: You must inflate Dude with your mouth or a pump, although I definitely recommend using an electric pump, otherwise you might be inflating for a while! Make sure to leave enough room for Dude’s arms and legs to be bent easily. Dude will smell like a pool inflatable for a little while (Don’t tell him, or else he’ll get self conscious!), but the smell goes away after a while of it being out of the packaging. Players can play alone (ideal with at least three players), or can divide into two teams.
There are 110 charade cards with four actions on each card, giving tons to play without any repeats. There are two colored activities on each side of the card, red or blue, so decide which side to go with. Players can keep score using the score sheet, which easily keeps track of every point. Players will have 45 seconds to perform as many charades as they can, which can be kept track using a stopwatch on any smartphone or by downloading the Dude app. There are four rounds in every game—with the last round being double points—so each game will last about half an hour.
In each round, players must first read the underlined sentence out loud, which helps in steering the guessers in a particular direction. The actions are downright hilarious, with some of my favorites being, “What’s up with the Dude?” (He’s dead), “What is the Dude doing?” (Dropping his ice cream cone), and “What are we doing?” (Staring contest). Some cards are harder to guess than others, so we decided to “pass” cards if they were too hard to guess. The player or team with the most points after four rounds wins! I must admit that it’s a little weird getting used to charading with Dude at first, but it was easy to get over it.
Who’s the Dude? is an edgy party game is best played with a group of friends, but is also guaranteed to provide laughs for any family-friendly function. What’s the Dude up to this time?
