With statements ranging from, “It’s OK to take your shoes off on an airplane” to, “I could survive a zombie apocalypse,” Disagreeable A Party Game for The Opinionated is sure to arouse heated debates and loud laughter.
Leaside native Mike Barrett, who along with his wife Katie Porter designed the game, said that was the goal all along.
Both lifelong lovers of party games, the idea came to them during a family vacation three years ago. Barrett said it started with a simple question: “Wouldn’t it be fun if there was a game that was almost like making a bet on who would feel a certain way about things before it’s actually revealed?”
The rules are simple. A statement card is read aloud. Players then secretly vote “agree” or “disagree” and predict how many others will agree. Points are then scored for correctly guessing the number of players who agree.
They drew inspiration from Wizard, a game, like their own, that involves predicting the outcome of each round.
Barrett said coming up with the statements was the fun part. He said the best ones were those that sparked impromptu debates “that were not necessarily part of the rules of the game but would simply happen when people reveal their results.”
Barrett works in tech sales and Porter is in marketing and e-commerce. Some of the skills were definitely transferable to this venture.
They used their marketing savvy to get the product in stores province-wide, while Porter leveraged her experience in e-commerce to get the product to online retailers.
The game has taken off in popularity and has been featured by pages on TikTok and Instagram. Barrett said it had exceeded their wildest expectations. “The goal line kind of moved over time,” he said.
At first their aim was to make a product they could encourage their friends and family to play, then a stranger, then get it into a store, then have a store reorder – all of which they’ve achieved.
Barrett said the most rewarding part for the pair, though, was seeing pictures of people playing the game with friends and family.
More games are coming down the chute, but Barrett has asked fans to be patient. “It takes a surprisingly long time” to come up with a new game, he said. Top of the list are other variations of Disagreeable, including an “after dark” version and a trivia-oriented one.
Barrett says the inspiration all started on the streets of Leaside. He and his friends would “invent different games and contests in our basements, or outside on the dead-end streets of Fleming Crescent and Cameron Crescent, or all around Bessborough Public School.”
Disagreeable is a family friendly game, which can be found on Amazon, at various local stores and on their website, goodonegames.com. Game on!
This article was guest contributed by Jake Ross.
