Our Take

• Danger Danger and Throw Throw Avocado are great for kids 7+ and grown-ups

• Exploding Kittens NSFW version might be better for just the grown-ups

• You also get the Barking Kittens expansion

• Fun visuals from the artist behind The Oatmeal

• Can it make a margarita: No, but you can enjoy a marg or two while you play them

• See the boring manufacturer specs >

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Fun For Everyone

Ah, the holidays! When the family’s all back together! What to do, what to do.

Oh, neat. Your cool older sister, LeAnne, has an idea: how about a fun game? She just got a bundle of them from this store online called Meh dot com. There’s Throw Throw Avocado, for ages 7+, so the kiddos can join in. Or Danger Danger. It bills itself as “a dangerously simple card game… with an evil twist you won’t see coming!”

Then, when the next generation goes night-night, there’s Exploding Kittens the NSFW version for the grown-ups. Don’t you want to see mom blush? Plus, she’s got the Barking Kittens expansion!

All of them are fun, easy for anyone, and feature cute visuals. It’ll be great!

But, uh-oh, your nerdy younger brother, Chad, needs to insert himself. He says, if you want to play games, he’s got the best one.

He takes out a small box of cards. It’s called MainFrame, and he says it’s like Sergio Leone movies meets Hackers. Confusing to see how those two might go together, but it sort of make sense when he explains the premise.

In it, you build out a fantastical computer, outfitting it with anti-virus software cards (which look like little Wild West lawmen). Other players send virus cards (fashioned to look like bandits), and they have a showdown.

Huh. Okay. Could be cool.

Right?

Seemingly from nowhere, Chad produces four dice, and your heart sinks. You each have to go around and roll them before you draw any cards to establish your main frame’s eight characteristics.

The process takes about thirty-five minutes. At the end of it, Chad asks if everyone got all that, at which point you realize you were supposed to write everything down. You have to do it all over again.

The game itself might be fun if you’ve played it many times before, but everyone is too confused to enjoy it. Every time anyone tries to do anything, Chad tells them that, given the processing speed they rolled, they can’t do that.

The children grow restless, begging to be sent to bed. But the game keeps going and going, late into the night.

You really should’ve gone with LeAnne’s suggestion.