Man Bites Dog Card Game

My 9th grader asked for this card game. I thought the name was a little strange but it is perfect for this word game. Man Bites Dog can be enjoyed by anyone who can read with only a slight advantage to the adults.

I was introduced to this game by some friends and had to get it for myself because it was so much fun. The deck of cards contains a variety of words or short phrases, such as "President," "Woman," "Shoots," "Turns In" or "Dog." Each card also has a point value associated with it. Each player is dealt five cards, which they must try to arrange to make a clever sentence in the style of a newspaper headline ("Woman Shoots President, Turns In Dog"). You can discard and draw up to three new cards. Each player makes their headline, and the best one wins the indicated number of points.

I don't know how educational this game is, but it certainly does focus on reading and making sentences, and the words are all clean (though some combinations can definitely have a double entendre effect) so it's safe for even young kids while still fun for adults-only use too. The only real drawback is the lack of any way to incorporate punctuation, especially commas, but you make up for it in the way you read your headline, providing the right emphasis to make it funny and make it make sense.

We play this for family nights. It is a blast! We all get a kick out if this game, from our 9-year-old son, to the 40-something mom. Easy to learn, fun to play. I'm glad I bought this game.

This game would be better if it had a better variation of cards. There are too many that are like the rest. We played with 6 people, didn't reuse the cards everytime and it seemed like they were all the same and it turned boring fast. It seemed like they made too many cards made with man, lawyer, and mayor because these people were in everything!

I bought this game during a vacation and we had such fun playing it on the road back home. You get 5 cards which have a headline word on it like "Man" and "Blonde". You are able to trade your words out once (up to 3). Each card has a point value on it. You want to create the best headline possible to make the most points. Headlines must make sense and be possible. Lots of fun!