Review: You Might Be a Redneck if…Game
Publisher: Patch
Year: 2006
Tagline: (none)

how we met

This is an old story. I found You Might Be a Redneck if…Game at my local town thrift shop. It was half off of $1.99 which is ideal, because I definitely wanted to buy it and $1.99 would have been on the outside of what I was willing to pay.

The cover illustration shows light and teasing fun, which is what I expected out of the gameplay. I was happy to find this game at such a bargain.

how it plays

The object of You Might Be a Redneck if…Game is to be the first Redneck to collect one of each: a recliner, a hound, a flyswatter, some kind of jerky, a television and a satellite dish. Then return home to your trailer and you win!

To accomplish this unenviable goal, you must move around the board to various locations that offer these prizes. You don’t have to land at these locations by exact count, nor do you have to do anything once you get there. Once you get there, take your item, put it in your trailer and that’s the end of your turn.

So how do you get there? On your turn, another player will read one of the cards to you. Each card consists of a sentence with a blank and multiple choices to fill in the blank. One of those choices is original content and was written by Jeff Foxworthy himself. Your goal is to choose which of the three punchlines is “Foxworthy.” The card has a friendly neighborhood Redneck at the bottom that will determine how many spaces you move in the event of a right or a wrong answer.

Some spaces on the board contain small signs that you are supposed to follow if you land on them. For example, the sign might say, “Have everybody call you Vern.” You must do this for the remainder of the game.

Another space on the board is DUMB LUCK. If you land on DUMB LUCK, you take a DUMB LUCK card and read it aloud. Then flip the REDNECK COIN. If you get heads, you must do what the card says. If you get tails, you choose another Redneck to do the thing.

For some reason, your mother-in-law’s trailer provides both hounds and satellite dishes. When you land here you must choose only one of these items as you can only collect one prize per turn. You have to leave and come back in order to claim your other item – and you can’t change directions on a single turn.

Once you have your items, race back to your trailer for the win!

how it went

This is another game we played recently when my family was in town. Some of our players were fresh from an 11+ hour drive and ready to game — but they wanted to play simple, fun games that don’t require a lot of brain power after a long drive. Bill chose this game as fitting the criteria. And boy did it fit the criteria.

The game allows up to four players and we had six, so my sister Jaime and I played solo, Bill and my bro-in-law Aaron teamed up, and John and Keri teamed up. Sister rivalry, yo.

You Might Be a Redneck if…Game is pretty simple but humorous. It is full of content (or as Bill would say, it’s pitching a lot of ‘tent) and that content is almost exclusively one-liner jokes. Even better, the jokes have multiple punchlines and you pick the “Foxworthiest.”

And that’s the dilemma. The funniest punchline is X. Did Jeff Foxworthy say it? Or did he say Z? Sometimes he nails it and sometimes the writers do. If you are not familiar with Jeff Foxworthy’s body of work (which we were not, except as a thing) then this introduces a certain randomness to gameplay. But in a really fun way. It also leads to a lot of fun speculation around who was hired to write the extra punchlines, what was the agreement if any, etc.

The game does itself a favor by allowing movement even if you miss the correct punchline. Moving around the board is pretty quick, and you choose which direction you move so betting on Dumb Luck cards adds a fun option. Who knew I would get to hear my sister belt out a hog holler within a couple of hours of arriving at her visit? Thanks, Jeff Foxworthy.

In the end John and Keri won, which was a pretty poor first impression to meeting my family now that I think about it.

I have to give a shout out to the artwork and design of this game, which appears to match the other You Might Be a Redneck If… properties like the albums and books. It is really on theme by drawing your eye but being sloppy and messy at the same time. I can’t look away, and it works. If the artwork had gone more defined it would have changed the entire presentation of the game.

It is perhaps worth noting that I grew up in the American midwest, and “redneck” is a term defined almost entirely by pop culture for me. Almost entirely by the silly one-line jokes in this game – which was peripheral in my life. I know the term has history and significance to others beyond the pop culture blanket statements. Please do share your perspective if you have one.

It’s also worth noting that Jeff Foxworthy’s album You Might Be a Redneck if… was released in June of 1993, almost exactly 25 years ago. And the game You Might Be a Redneck if…Game was released in 2006, 13 years later. Someone thought that was a good idea. From light Wikipedia searching it appears this game happened sometime around the point Jeff Foxworthy’s “Blue Collar TV” show was canceled by WB and sometime around the point “Foxworthy’s Big Night Out” was picked up by Country Music Television. It also lines up with “The Jeff Foxworthy Show” (canceled by this point) airing on Nick at Nite and Country Music Television, and with the release of Jeff Foxworthy’s Redneck Dictionary II: More Words You Thought You Knew the Meaning Of. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

play or pass

Pass. This is one of those occasions I wish I had a catch-all meh rating that I could rely on. We had some good laughs over You Might Be a Redneck if…Game. It is light and funny and simple. But the randomness feels completely out of your control. It is not dice randomness, it is literally random choices from a multiple choice card. It also relies too much on a humor we didn’t wholeheartedly identify with. My feedback is very consistent with BGG ratings. The game is fun, we laughed, it’s a great time, drinking helps, etc. But the game is not great. It is a cash grab that is taking the cash and running. Pick it up for a buck or two and play it once.