How to play

Description

How many people is a card game in which players consider questions that all begin with “How many people…”. How many people live in France? How many people have been to space? And so on. The goal of the game is to make a guess at how the answers to these questions compare to each other not to come up with an exact answer. For example, in the course of a game, a player might be trying to guess whether there are more people in the United States named John, or who live in Portland, Maine.

Players

The game can be played with one or more people. 2-5 is probably the sweet spot. With larger numbers you might be bored waiting for your turn to come back around.

Setup

Deal three cards to each player. Players should keep their cards answer-side up and arrange them on the table in ascending order from least to most people.

Gameplay

The game is played in turns moving clockwise (as a fun variation feel free to occasionally play counter clockwise!). On your turn, take a new card from the deck and read the question aloud. Decide where you believe this card fits in the order of cards in your hand and indicate that to your fellow players. (e.g. “I think it’s more than the number of people who live in Portland, Maine and less than the number of people named John”). Flip over the card and reveal the answer. If your guess was correct, add the card to your hand at the position you indicated. If your guess was incorrect (i.e., the card does not fit in the position you pointed to), do not add the card to your hand. Instead, return it to the bottom of the deck.

Scoring

The number of cards in your hand is your score. As you get more cards the game gets harder since you’ll have more potential choices when trying to fit a new card into your hand.

End of Game

You can play the game for as long as desired or you can set a specific number of cards as the winning condition. For example, the first player to collect 15 cards could be declared the winner.

Bonus rule

If you’d like you can play with an extra rule, which allows people to try to guess the answer to a question directly for the chance to earn a bonus card. If on your turn, you think you can guess the correct answer, you can say the number. If you’re within 10% of the correct answer, you get the card, and you can pick the card at the top of the deck and add that to your hand as well. If you are further than 10% from the correct answer, you don’t get the card.

QR Codes

The QR codes on each card will take you to the How Many People website. You can review the source that we used for the answer, rate the card, or submit your own card that you’d like us to add to a future deck.