Choke-Talk

Choke-Talk is a silly 3-player debate game all about stage fright and choking on your words. 

Two players choose multiple questions and topics to debate and come up with ban words for that the opponent player will not be allowed to use in their arguments. Debates must keep going under a strict timer while players fight to win the conversation and trip up their opponent by making them accidentally say one of the ban words, all while being supervised and listened to by a third adjudicator player and the audience. Whoever manages to fumble up their words the least after the end of 3 rounds wins!

The Choke-Talk print-out comes with:

• 34 'Prompt Cards' - these contain questions and debate topics that players could discuss and argue over (along with blank cards to make your own cards)
• 12 'Modifier Cards' - these are additional rules and ban words that players must abide by along with their opponent's ban words (along with blank cards here as well)
• Player Word Sheets - these can be used by players to keep track of their ban words for swapping during gameplay (although a whiteboard is encouraged here)
• Player Tally Sheets - these can be used to keep track of player score and a global pool of ban words for audience members to keep track of (though, again, a whiteboard is also heavily encouraged here)

Other equipment required to play the game include:

• Pens and/or pencils
• Whiteboards
• A timer device (either a chess timer or a phone stopwatch that players and/or the adjudicator keep track of

House rules are allowed and heavily encouraged! The 'Prompt' and 'Modifier' cards are provided as suggestions for what players might want to debate, but any cards are fair game if you feel the provided cards are a bit too limited.

Choke-Talk was made as a prototype for Critical Game Design Workshop 2026, hosted by Joshua Hompstead at UWE Bristol. The game attempts to reflect on and contextualise my own personal experiences with stage fright as well as my difficulties with arguing and debating people. While the game has been designed around stupid and light-hearted fun, I do also hope this helps provide a tool to contextualise the concept of performance anxiety!

Credits:

• 'Card Template Generator' for the card printout PDF files (https://cardgenerator-github-io.pages.dev/)
• My housemate Dan for helping me come up with interesting prompt ideas