Slash: Romance without Boundaries is a card-based party game produced by indie game developer Games by Play Date that imitates the language of 2010s-era Tumblr fandom culture, in which players create “ships” – that is, romantic and/or sexual pairings between different characters, both real and fictional. Each round, one player assumes the role of the judge, known as the “matchmaker,” and the rest of the players act as contestants. For setup, each player is dealt 10 character cards that are replenished at the end of each round. At the start of each round, the matchmaker selects a character card and places it in the center of the table – the contestants must then choose a card from their own hand to complete the “ship,” with the ultimate goal being to propose a match that they think will be chosen by the matchmaker as the “One True Pairing.” The matchmaker’s choice determines the winner, and both cards of the One True Pairing are given to the winning contestant and added to their score pile. Each character card contains a point value between 1 and 3, with 1-point cards being the more popular heartthrob characters, 2-point cards being the medium-level match with a lot more joke entries and a large concentration of the non-human characters, and the 3-point cards being considered the most difficult mostly populated by the characters deemed too annoying or unlikeable to win without a good argument. The game offers two modes of play: the less intense version “casual fling” being a straight playthrough where the matchmaker’s choice is dependent upon the card itself, following a format similar to party games like Cards Against Humanity. The second option, “Hardcore,” requires the matchmaker to come up with a prompt, like “How do they meet?,” where the players must engage in storytelling elements to convince the matchmaker that their card is worthy of being the One True Pairing” In either game mode, players have the choice to create conflict if they disagree with the matchmaker’s choice and can challenge the round’s winner by drawing a card from their score pile and creating a narrative about the matchmaker’s character and their score pile card. The table’s satisfaction is the goal because if the majority approves, the challenger keeps both cards and if it is unsatisfactory, they lose the card from their score pile creating a risk in proposing a challenge.
The character cards make up the material portion of the game, but the approach to some figures and descriptions of the ‘characters’ feels careless. Opening the box, one is greeted by an overwhelming yet exciting number of cards as the amount of repetitive gameplay appears low. However, the extensive variety may negatively impact the players’ enjoyment of the game as many of the cards feature characters that would be deemed ‘throw-away cards’ that are still worth only a single point. Also, the inclusion of historical figures and celebrities should have been more heavily considered as the focus on quantity brought many figures who should have been left out of the card game, such as Helen Keller, Gandhi, or H.P. Lovecraft (with his description labeling him as a “horrible, horrible racist”), or inaccurate descriptions of the individual, like famous drag queen RuPaul whose card received the trans symbol for the gender marker despite conflating RuPaul’s performance of drag as equivalent to his gender.
