Networking game based on bluffing

Participants only need a phone. Then they find someone they've never met, connect and play one quick round. One player peeks into the boxes and says "keep" or "swap." It might be the truth, or it might be a bluff. The other player decides whether to believe them. Carrots get picked, and off they go to find the next stranger. Most carrots wins.

Nobody has to make small talk

The hardest part of networking is the first sentence, and Box of Carrots writes it for you. Instead of asking what someone does, you're working out whether they're bluffing about vegetables. Thirty seconds later you've met, laughed and moved on. And when you run into them in the coffee line later, you already have something to relate back to.

Give it its own slot

Box of Carrots is a short, loud burst, not a background activity. Give it 10 to 20 minutes with the whole room playing at once. The big screen counts down and a live leaderboard keeps score. When time runs out, you reveal the podium one place at a time. It has a clear start and a clear finish, and then it's back to the agenda with a room that's awake and hopefully more connected than before.

Who it's for

Conferences and large events with 50 people or more. Usually from 100 to 500 players, but it can handle 1,000. It's built for rooms full of people who don't know each other yet: an icebreaker after the opening keynote, or a kickoff for a networking break. It's not deep networking, and nobody swaps business cards mid-round. It just makes everyone a little easier to talk to afterward.

It's silly. That's the point.

This is a silly game for serious situations. Grown professionals will be bluffing each other about carrots, and if your event has a dress code, that's exactly why it works. Everyone needs to be in the same room with their phones and one big screen. It doesn't work remotely.

Set up in one minute. Really.

Open the host screen, put the presenter view on the big screen, and press start. Players scan the QR code and they're in, with no app and no accounts. You choose the game length, how long players get to decide, and the event name shown on every screen. Need a language we don't have yet? Tell us and we'll add it for free.

[ Give it a go ]