Apples to Apples is a great game. It’s a really cool example of how social dynamics alone can create interesting gameplay without the need for complex rules. These kinds of social games make a great bridge between gamers and non-gamers, because the dynamics they function on allow them to be more engaging than pure-luck games like Candyland and Chutes and Ladders while still being simple enough for non-gamers to learn and understand.
Here’s a list of games with social dynamics or category-matching mechanics reminiscent of Apples to Apples. Some of these games are technically mechanically identical and only differ in content and theme, while others replicate only some aspects of the game, but they’re all engaging in their own ways.
Updated July 23, 2025, by Davis Collins:Apples to Apples is an easy game to make variations of. There’s so much you can do with its format, the challenge of answering prompt cards with response cards and having a person judge which response was best. There are a ton of games that do interesting things with this idea, and we’ve come back to this list to add more of them.
Name That Puppy
Adorable pictures of dogs
This card game takes the Apples to Apples format away from humor and toward a higher end, looking at pictures of adorable dogs. It’s a very clever spin on a familiar game.
Are you a dog person? If you’re a dog person who likes Apples to Apples, this is the game for you. This game takes the prompt-card response-card format that makes Apples to Apples and its derivatives so elegantly intriguing and fills in the only thing it was missing: cute dogs.
In this game, the prompt cards are dog names, and the response cards are pictures of dogs. Each round, players will be competing to supply the best dog for that round’s name.It’s a ton of fun, especially for a dog lover.
Name That Kitty
Adorable pictures of cats
There’s only one thing that rivals looking at pictures of dogs: looking at pictures of cats, and that’s just what this game is designed to allow you to do.
Are you a cat person? If you’re a cat person who likes Apples to Apples, this is the game for you.
No, no, we didn’t accidentally include the same game twice. We wouldn’t make a rookie mistake like that. (Now that I’ve said that, watch me do it on my next list.) Regardless, this game makes an important change from the last one, it replaces the dogs with cats. Whether this is an upgrade or a downgrade is a matter of individual preference, butif you’re a fan of small, house-dwelling monsters with rigid, pointy ears, you’ll want to check this one out.
Apples To Apples Junior
Great for groups with younger players
This special edition of Apples to Apples is tweaked and rewritten to be ideal for younger players, while still playing essentially the same as the original game.
Apples to Apples is already reasonably appropriate for children, but some of the cards have relatively complex or specific ideas on them that younger children will struggle to comprehend. This product exists to solve that problem. It’s mechanically identical to the base game. The sole difference is that the cards have been rewritten to be a bit simpler, so younger children will have an easy time following them.
Though this simplification will make the game less interesting to adults in some ways, it has the pleasant side effect of reducing the number of pop culture references on the red cards. Anyone who’s played a lot of Apples to Apples knows those can be some of the most disappointing cards to draw, especially when your set is a few years old and the references are now dated, and it’s nice to see them gone here.
Cards Against Humanity
Deeply offensive in the best possible way
An inversion of the above, Cards Against Humanity uses mechanics almost identical to those of Apples to Apples and rewrites its cards to be asinappropriatefor children as humanly possible.
One of the funniest tabletop games ever made,Cards Against Humanityis likewise essentially mechanically identical to Apples (though it has a few tweaks that make it slightly more complicated). Like Apples to Apples Junior, the main difference is in the content of the cards. However, where Apples to Apples Junior alters the cards' content to make them more suitable for children, Cards Against Humanity is out to make themfar, far less so.
Both the prompt cards and the answer cards refer to deeply offensive subject matter, including the morbid, the sexual, the scatological, and the politically incorrect. It explicitly challenges players to make thefunniestcombinations of cards they can, and the cards are well-written to facilitate funny moments. The resulting game is something some people won’t be able to stomach, but for those that can, it’s hilarious.
Cards Against Humanity is the quintessential thing-that-is-not-for-children. The crude, offensive, mature nature of its humor is among its defining features, and, before we learned about this game, we would’ve told you it’s impossible to take that game and reform it back into something suitable for children (and perhaps even that Apples to Apples was the closest you could come.
But by golly, they did it. They took the most adult game ever made and aged it back down while allowing it to retain its essence. It turns out irreverent humor and deliberate edginess is something that can be adapted for all ages. This game plays around with, but does not quite cross the limits of age-appropriateness, while the irreverent voice that makes CAH special.
New Phone, Who Dis?
It’s time to figure out who was phone
In this slightly less raunchy (but still not appropriate for children!) variant of Cards Against Humanity replaces the questions and answers with out-of-the-blue texts and responses.
Another game that’s mechanically identical to Apples to Apples, New Phone Who Dis? mixes things up by framing its prompts as out-of-the-blue texts and its answers as responses. This framing device allows a lot of the questions and answers to be more interesting than the simple ones in other games, though it also means they’ll often be wordier, and the increased specificity sometimes makes it harder to match reply to prompt.
Still, this game is good in most of the same ways Cards Against Humanity is good, and in a few of its own ways as well.
What Do You Meme? Bigger Better Edition Party Game
A very clever way of reframing familiar mechanics
Another Apples to Apples reskin, this one mixes things up by using photos as prompts and having players select what caption cards they wish to pair with them.
The final in our series of games that are mechanically identical to Apples to Apples, this one sets itself apart from the others by tasking players with creating memes by matching images to captions. This variation is enough to make things interesting and justify this game’s independent existence.
One awesome advantage of this game is that, because the prompts are photos, and because they’re selected by the judge instead of drawn at random, you can incorporate your own photos into the game. Not every photo is suitable for this, but if you have the right photo, one that’s significant to a lot of the players at your table, you can get some amazing moments out of this.
Dixit
The art is amazing
This excellent card game charges players with puzzling out the abstract connections between spoken prompts and beautiful, surreal cards.
One of the most beautiful board games out there, Dixit is one of the best marriages of simplicity and engagement in the history of tabletop gaming. It’s similar to Apples to Apples in that it gives each player a hand of cards and tasks them with matching them to a prompt. However, rather than this prompt being another card, it’s a clue given by the current round’s “storyteller.”
At the beginning of each round, the storyteller selects one of their cards and describes it with a clue. Everyone plays a card from their own hand which they think could also match that clue. The cards are revealed, and everyone has to guess which one was the original. The scoring system rewards the storyteller for having some players guess their card correctly, but punishes them if everyone does, so they have to design their prompts to be useful enough that some people figure them out, but not so obvious that everyone does.
Scattergories
Brainstorm ideas that fit various categories
A different game about matching items to categories, this relatively quick game tasks players with coming up with unique answers to interesting prompts.
While playing Apples to Apples, have you ever had an amazing answer to the current round’s prompt pop into your head, making you wish with everything you have that a card matching it existed, and was in your hand? Well, Scatergories will give you the power to make up answers for yourself.
Scatergories gives you a list of categories and assigns everyone a randomly selected letter, thencharges them with thinking of a wordthat matches each category and starts with the target letter. You’d better not be too obvious, because you only get points for answers no one else thought of. If you’re looking for a game that rewards creativity in the process of assigning objects to categories, this one is for you.
Snake Oil
Make a compelling pitch
This silly role-playing card game plays a lot like Apples to Apples, but replaces anonymous card-matching with engaging salesmanship.
This fun little card game adds something new to the Apples to Apples formula: role play. At the beginning of each round, a customer card is drawn. Every player, except the current judge, uses two of the cards from their hand to construct a product to sell to that customer, and makes a sales pitch. Once everyone has made a sales pitch, the customer picks that round’s winner.
Where Apples to Apples and similar games usually have answers submitted anonymously and with no additional context, this game actively encourages players to sell their choice to the judge, and asks the judge to pick the best pitch, not necessarily the best cards. This comes at the cost of anonymity and creates room for bias, but the fun of playing out the exchanges between customer and salesmen more than makes up for it.
FAQ
What number of points do you play to in Apples to Apples?
It depends on the number of players. There’s a chart in the rules that says how many cards it takes to win with any given player count. The more players, the fewer cards are required.
What age is Apples to Apples appropriate for?
The box says it’s for children twelve and up, though this limit has less to do with its content being mature and more to do with the gameplay itself being difficult for young children to follow. If you want to play Apples to Apples with young children, you should purchase the junior edition of the game featured on this list.
What age is Cards Against Humanity appropriate for?
Adults. Cards Against Humanity crosses just about every line, so unless someone is ready to seeeverything, there’s something in that box they shouldn’t see. If you want a similar game you can play with children, get Kids Against Maturity, which evokes a similar tone with milder, more child-friendly writing.
