Review: "Punderdome" Card Game

Punderdome is a creative card game for at least three pun-loving people. Players can compete as individuals or small teams, as long as there is always at least one person or team to be the "Prompter" while at least two other individuals or teams can compete in the round.


Each round begins with a warm up question, where the first team to answer with a pun that fits  receives an extra 30 seconds to come up with their pun that round.

A suggested answer is provided, but any answer that fits is accepted and encouraged.

The round itself is played with the Prompter revealing a white card and a green card with which the teams have 90 seconds to combine into a pun and write it down. The Prompter votes on the best, and the winner becomes Prompter for next round. First team to 10 round victories wins the game.

This one took me more like five minutes than 90 seconds, but I'm proud to finally say my response to this is: Kung-Fu-cianism (Confucianism). I found it quite challenging to come up with something, so I could see wanting to play in teams especially at first, though you would need at least 6 players to do even teams.

An example given in the rules is Exercising Furniture:

• You can only run sofa until you need to take a break!
• Come on in here, pull-up a chair!
• I never go to the gym--I'm more of a La-Z-Boy.

Winning the game involves choosing one of two mystery envelopes that the Host of the game has filled secretly before the game with a slip of paper that names a prize. The game suggests that one could be a good prize ("I'll buy you a drink") while one could be a rotten prize (a used napkin). A carry-over from the live game show the card game is based on, I'm sure it could be very interesting if you have great ideas for the prizes. However, as someone who plays games often, I could see it as being a hassle, a deterrent from playing, and frankly just unnecessary. Games don't need prizes to make them fun to play! I could see skipping the prize envelope entirely and just letting winning 10 rounds be the end of the game. If you had specific plans to play Punderdome, planning ahead could make the prize envelope part more fun.

This is the live game show the card game is based off.

All things considered, this could be a really fun game with the right group of creative individuals. Like any game, knowing your audience and their game preferences is important for knowing if this game would go over well. If you have a friend that is always inserting corny puns into everyday conversation like I do, you know this game would be a perfect fit.

A final note: as a game enthusiast/nerd, I have to express my appreciation that the box has dividers for keeping the two decks of cards separate. I love an organized game box.

I received a free copy of this game in exchange for my honest review.