Game Review: “Slash: Romance without Boundaries”

Sexy games are usually not meant for more than two players, and if they are, they more than likely involve keys in a fishbowl or some other activities that everyone might not be down for. The makers of the new card game "Slash: Romance without Boundaries" have brought together two insanely popular concepts: slash fiction and the multiplayer card game. Think Cards Against Humanity but with characters as far ranging as Princess Peach (Super Mario Bros.) and Rosie the Robot (The Jetsons) in place of the answer cards.

For my first experience playing the game, I gathered together a diverse group of friends, some of whom knew quite a bit about pop culture, and others that didn't. The only disadvantage was that none of them were familiar with the concept of slash fiction, so it took quite some time to explain it to them, and honestly, you haven't lived until you've had to explain to a group of mild-mannered friends what slash fiction is. 

There are two modes of gameplay, "Casual Fling" and "Hardcore." We opted to go Hardcore, and the rules for that mode of play were as follows. Everyone is dealt 10 cards, and one person is selected as "matchmaker." That title is typically reserved for the person who most recently suffered a break-up, but to get everyone headed in the right direction, I was matchmaker for the first round. 

The matchmaker then selects one of his character cards, in this case I selected Helen Keller whose card reads: "Historical Figure: Deaf, Blind, But Not Dumb. 2 points." Everyone then selects one of their cards that they feel would best pair with Helen Keller, and places it in front of them. In turn, each player then describes the story that they would tell involving their character and Helen Keller. The two that most intrigued me were Thing from The Addams Family, who's just a hand and would best meet her needs without needing much in return from her, and Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, whose kinky sadism provided some delectable material for a woman who would theoretically be unaware of what he was doing to her. 

I selected Lecter since the story was a bit kinkier, and more dialogue driven. The player whose card that was then gets both my card and his and adds up the points. The game progresses until one player reaches 20 points. One area where this game differs from Cards Against Humanity that I was a fan of, is that players may keep or discard as many cards as they wish at the end of each round, so long as they get back to 10 to start the next round. This way, you could hang on to ones that could potentially work really well and not be forced to draw a new hand each time. 

Some of the most interesting pairings that came out of the game were...

Frozone from The Incredibles and The White Witch from Narnia

Norman Bates from Psycho and Wadsworth the Butler from Clue 

Swamp Thing and Frodo from Lord of the Rings 

Joan of Arc and Rasputin

Princess Buttercup from The Princess Bride and Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.

One of the most interesting aspects of gameplay is the notion of challenging. If a player thinks that their match is better than the one the matchmaker selects, they may challenge and both players then get one final pitch for their characters that is then voted on by the entire table. Whichever person wins the challenge then gets all three cards, so it's a good way to rack up extra points, but it can become tiresome since there is literally no risk for the challenger, so the incentive to challenge is high.

I'll get to my thoughts in a moment, but here were some of the thoughts from the group at large, bearing in mind that these were people from all walks of life, only one of whom (outside of myself) has an arts background.

"Not that fun for me because you have to be super creative to make the game any fun or good, and most people aren't super creative so it would be tough to get a random group of people together, all of whom could make them game fun. You might get two out of twelve, but you need twelve out of twelve to make it fun."

"There were groupings of multiple characters from the same stories, multiple Ninja Turtle characters, multiple Lord of the Rings characters, that I think made it less fun. Considering that they have blank cards in there, you couldn't think of a more diverse group of people? That just might have made it more fun and easier for the rest of us."

"I know a lot about pop culture and even I didn't know all of the characters, and I've never felt that way."

"I'm a sick fuck that can joke around about anything and not be offended, and even I got bored after hearing five or six of these stories."

"It prompts people who are not naturally interested in nasty sex to think of things that are disgusting, and it just gets boring after a minute because you're just throwing out whatever you have."

"Well, I won, so..."

Here are my thoughts. I think it's a fun game, it just needs the right group of people. I enjoyed seeing my relatively straight-laced friends playing the game and saying dirty things, but that novelty wears off once you realize that they're not really having a good time. To make this game work, you need a group of people that have a huge breadth of pop culture knowledge, and either find it humorous or titillating to make up stories involving those characters. The crossover between those two groups seems very, very small to me.

Those that do fit into that group, however, will have an absolute blast. 

You can buy your very own copy of "Slash: Romance without Boundaries" here.