Burning Bridges: Singaporeans Kickstart New Card Game That Takes Your Friendship To The Next Level

You might have heard of Burning Bridges before or some variation of this party game where juicy and controversial humour comes to the fore. Players are pitted against one another to answer politically incorrect and socially unsettling questions to come out victorious in the most despicable way.

Singaporean company Start Something Studios has taken this game to the next level as you can now play Burning Bridges with physical cards, available via Kickstarter.

Five to twelve players will be ideal to play this Burning Bridges card game edition. This edition consists of 120 questionable question cards, 2 sets of Fire, Water, Gasoline Cards and 12 sets of Lifeline cards.

How To Play?

The sensitive question cards are the core components of Burning Bridges and they can be quite a friendship-breaker so just take note—if you can’t deal with topics about your sexuality or social status, this game ain’t for you.

Players will draw a card, read it, then pass it to someone to answer (you have to point to someone at the table) without revealing the initial question. Questions include stuff like “who is the least ideal person to date?” or “who masturbates most to their ex?”.

The Fire, Water and Gasoline cards are just a thematic iteration of the classic Rock, Paper, Scissors game. Once someone has answered the question via pointing out someone during the game, the question bearer and answerer will engage in this mini-battle to determine whether the question needs to be revealed. If the question bearer wins, the answerer needs to reveal what the question was, if not, he can keep silent.

Each player will receive three crucial lifeline cards: You Can’t Handle The Truth!, Ask Me Something Else, and Da Force. Each card can only be used once per game. These lifeline cards provide you some breather from some of the honest mental abuse in this game and they are basically  “Get out of jail” free cards with the instructions listed on them.

Testing Out Gameplay

The first player (Player A) starts the game by drawing a card from the Questions deck and will read the question before choosing another player (Player B) to answer the question. Player B will then read the question and point to any player (Player C) who he/she thinks fits the profile in the question.

Player A and Player B will then do a battle in a game of Fire, Water and Gasoline. Water > Fire > Gasoline > Water.

If Player A loses, the question is kept secret and Player B keeps the Question card, earning one bridge part. If Player A wins, the question is revealed instead. Player A keeps the Question card, earning one bridge part. This will be the awkward moment between Player B and C right now as brutal honest questions and answers are revealed for all.

However, you do have the option of using a lifeline card to avoid any awkwardness by refusing to reveal the question or getting a new question.

Then, in a clockwise fashion, Player B starts the next move and repeats the cycle. Once any player gathers a total of 7 Bridge Parts, they will win the game and sit out as the remaining players continue to burn bridges.

Bottoms Up!

There is a drinking variation of this game if you are willing to let alcohol control the flow of the game. In this version, players are not assembling Bridge Parts to win, instead, try to stay sober enough to remember the embarrassing moments,

The general gameplay and flow remain the same except that Lifeline cards are now replaced with shot glasses filled. Carry out the number of shots that are set by everyone at the start of the game to use the “Lifeline Card”.

Burning Bridges is certainly not a game for sensitive souls as brutal answers will appear and you might not be able to take it. My suggestion: don’t play if you can’t take the heat, otherwise, the friendships will be effectively ruined. Or you might even bond over it, who knows.

Burning Bridges has easy logistics and rules to have fun with for hours. Repeatability is an issue though with only 120 question cards, so hopefully some expansion pack appears. Pre-order your copy from S$24 via Kickstarter.

Burning Bridges Card Game: Secure your copy on Kickstater