Chez Geek is a card game from Steve Jackson Games, designed by Jon Darbro and illustrated by John Kovalic, that pokes fun at the geek lifestyle. Players take the role of a group of college-age slackers. Each player is dealt a random Job, which gives them Free Time (how many actions they can perform per turn), Income (how much money they can spend on Things or Activities), and a Slack Goal representing the amount of cool stuff they need to do (and buy) to overcome the stress of that job (from Slacker all the way up to Corporate Drone). Players can catch up on their sleep, play role-playing games (or computer games), watch bad TV, get some nookie, buy food, booze, cigarettes, and other recreational drugs, invite people over (or send annoying people to the other players' rooms), and other crazy stuff. There are, one might guess, elements of Take That, Audience! and This Loser Is You involved.
Two numbered expansions (Slack Attack and Block Party) were released for the game and were later combined into Chez Geek: House Party Edition. Two more expansions were released later, Slack to the Future (adding modern day items and activities) and Spring Break (adding vacation-themed cards). A number of spin-offs and variants have also been released, including Chez Goth and Chez Cthulhu. Not to be confused with Chez Dork, which is a card game themed on Kovalic's Dork Tower published by the same company and with a similar logo and geekish themes, but different rules.
This game features examples of:
- All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles: Implied by the "Anime" card, and the Anime Babe from Chez Cthulhu, who tends to be a magnet for tentacled monsters.
- The Alleged Car: Harold the Hoopty Car. Chez Goth has a hearse with similar characteristics, because goths.
- Asshole Victim: The one card that lets you remove bad guests (or the Old Man Upstairs) without a die roll is called "Justifiable Homicide."
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: In the Goth set, Slack is supplemented by Gloom, so things that increase your Gloom are good, and things that decrease your Gloom are bad. On the other hand, "good is bad" doesn't quite apply, as things that decrease your Gloom aren't necessarily things that only Goths hate; they can be generically annoying situations that would piss Geeks off as well.
- Big Eater: Hungry Girl, an uninvited guest who makes you discard Food every turn she's in your room. The Choad Warrior has a similar effect but extends it to Booze and Weed as well.
- Calvin Ball: Not the game itself, but the Activity "Mutant Olympics" has the Geeks preparing to play some sort of weird sport that involves water guns and a toaster.
- Ceiling Banger: The Old Man Upstairs really wants you to be quiet.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Games tend to degenerate into players screwing with each other using Whenever cards.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: The Psycho Ex.
- Dumpster Dive: There’s a card for it; you can bring one other discarded card back into play. Rather disturbingly, this means that a Significant Other who has been removed by Justifiable Homicide can be brought back from the dumpster...
- Elevator Going Down: In the "Elevator Nookie" card.
- Frank's 2000 Inch TV: The Wide-Screen TV.
- Gargle Blaster: Implied with some of the Booze cards, like "Old Ragnarok".
- Grumpy Old Man: The Old Man Upstairs, a card that affects all roommates without technically being a guest—he stops TV and Nookie cards from being played until he's removed.
- Immodest Orgasm: If a player rolls a six for Nookie, they will achieve "Noisy Nookie", and if any of the roommates were asleep, they will be woken up.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: There are a vast number of Nookie cards that involve doing it in public.
- Mean Boss: The "Bad Boss" card increases the amount of Slack you need to win.
- Monumental Damage: From the flavor text for "Summer Blockbuster":''If they don't blow up at least ten national monuments, I'm leaving."
- Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: One of the four unwelcome guests - although this one can't be forced out as easily.
- Right Through the Wall: High-scoring Nookie cards can force your opponents to discard Sleep cards.
- Self-Deprecation: One of the Activity cards is for a "Stupid Card Game" that's clearly supposed to be Chez Geek.
- Shout-Out: A number of these...
- One of the TV shows is The Why-Files, alluding to The X-Files.
- Judging by the card art, the "Midnight Movie" is The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
- The flavor text for the "Role-Playing Game" Activity cards make reference to Dork Tower (Specifically the lines "Roll the dice, I want to see if I eat your spleen." and "I kill Gandalf!")
- The Slacker: Players take on the role of a typical twenty-something slacker.
- Soul-Crushing Desk Job: The Corporate Drone gets the most money of all the jobs, but has almost no free time to enjoy it. They've also got the highest Slack goal of all the jobs in the game.
- The Stoner: Weed is one of the many Things you can buy.
- Supreme Chef: She Who Cooks, a guest who enhances all food items in your room.
- Those Wacky Nazis: TV shows include "Hitler-Y Mysteries" and "Hitler Science Theater Y2K"
- Two-Person Pool Party: The card "Outdoor Nookie" has a couple skinny-dipping in a lake in the woods.
