Get ready for charades like you’ve never played it before.

You can play Pop Freak! with as many people as you can find. 

Divide yourselves into teams then randomly pull out about 40 cards (more for a longer game, fewer for a quick one) – but no peeking! Set the cards in a pile in the middle. This is the playing deck.

Each game has three rounds. Teams take 60 second turns to collect as many cards as they can by correctly guessing exactly what’s written on each of them. One person in the team does the talking (or not talking) to the rest of the team, who do the guessing.

For every correct guess, your team gets to keep the card. A round is over when there are no cards left in the playing deck. Tally the scores and shuffle all the cards back together for the next round. The winning team is the one who has accumulated the most cards over the three rounds.

Round 1
You can say anything you want besides the words or phrases on the card. If you say any of these, the card is returned randomly to the playing deck, and you lose five seconds from that turn. There’s no skipping of cards that you get stuck on. Sorry. And no spelling out words or rhyming!

Round 2
The same as round one, but you can only say one word. Use it wisely.

Round 3
No words or sounds.

About The Author

This game was collated by the editorial staff at Smith Street Books who are enthusatic (read: bad) actors.