Heads Up! is a charades-esque game available in the App Store and in the Google Play Store, which can be played with as few as two people. The game itself is easy to play: just open the app, choose a themed deck of cards, place your phone on your forehead with the screen facing your teammates, and try to guess what your card says based on clues given to you by your teammates. If you guess the card correctly, you tilt your phone forward, and a chime lets you know you’ve received a point for correctly guessing. If you get stuck on a card, you can tilt your phone up, and move on to the next card. Each round is one minute long, and as you get closer to the end of your time, a tune plays to warn you that you have 10 seconds left. For the price of $0.99 for the app, you have access to nine preloaded decks of cards. Categories of the starter decks include “Superstars,” “Accents & Impressions,” and “”Blockbuster Movies.” Other decks of cards – including “Adult Supervision” and “The Bible” – are available for purchase and range in price from $0.99 to $4.99. This game is targeted toward players of all ages. On the app store, it is ages 8 and up and the category is Family. But, the user can purchase an “adults-only” deck for $4 for more adult-orientated play, as well as packs specifically for kids. In total, this game is intergenerational, which makes it unique and a great design choice. Personally, two of our group members have played this game in scenarios such as dinner parties, family reunions, and even during Thanksgiving. After reviewing the App Store reviews, it seems like there are 2 types of players: casual users vs. paying users. The casual user will purchase the app once and then play it on occasion, such as our groups members have before. But, the paying user will buy the app, and then spend more money purchasing additional card packs. This user will play the game more often, perhaps once a week at a game night with friends. The casual user tends to enjoy the game less than the paying user. One review stated that this game was not worth 99c, giving it a 1 star rating. During the same period of time, a paying user gave it 5 stars, saying that there were tons of options, tons of cards, and it was a great thing for their family to do every week. Depending on how much money is spent, the game will have different reactions. One of the game’s key design features is its emphasis on accessibility and universal appeal. It offers a variety of card packs covering a wide range of interests and age-appropriate content, and includes options in a number of languages. At the same time, the app is designed with very few assumptions made about the user’s technological expertise. Instead of the multi-tab interface (e.g. Instagram) familiar to most heavy technology users these days, the app has a single page that is navigated by swiping up and down. When the app is opened for the first time, an instructional video automatically pops out. The app is also designed so that the playing experience is largely left to the user to determine. It has only three main functions: counting the number of correct answers, timing, and showing new cards. There are virtually no on-screen feedback mechanisms such as levels, online leaderboards, or even a log of past results. In fact, even whether or not a card was guessed correctly is determined by the other players, resembling the way that board games rely on the players to moderate the game rather than the technology itself. (The association with board games is also indicative in the app’s aesthetic choices: the designers clearly intended for the interface to look like different boxes laid out on a table.) Notably, there is also no negative reinforcement in the game: you can’t get a card “wrong”, but only skip the ones that you can’t get right, and the period of one round is only one minute. Hence, the context in which the game is played is extremely flexible: you could play it over the span of a game night and keep track of the highest score, or it could just be a casual activity to pass the time during a car ride.
