Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

18 Mar 2021, 9:49 a.m.

Podguess -- A Little Guessing Game

I came up with this game and Leonard and I have been enjoying it the last few days, so here it is for you. I just came up with the name "podguess" which does not seem to be taken.

One person, using a podcast directory on the web or in a podcatcher app, searches for a really common word, like "five", "light", "box", or "board". That person reads podcast names to the other players, who try to guess what the podcast is actually about. What's "Be There in Five" about? or "Potholes and Penguins"? Sometimes you'll need to go to individual episode descriptions to find out! And sometimes you can't figure it out at all without listening!

While playing this we usually skip really obvious titles like "[name of church] Sermon Podcast" or "[money-related cliche] With [entrepreneur/self-help expert]". Also, I've only played this in person with one other person, but I think it would also work in groups and in a videocall.

This -- like Podcast Roulette -- is a fun way to discover the great breadth of podcasts out there, and to be mystified by odd things. And -- like my Powerpoint Karaoke best practices or this Wikipedia category-guessing game, which a friend built into a web app -- it's a way to harvest the natural weirdness of humans making and sharing stuff on the Internet and turn it into a little game for you and your friends.

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