A trivia and storytelling card game where you uncover the real story behind enduring legends, identify popular misconceptions as fact or fiction, and one-up your friends with the biggest whopper of a story you can tell with a straight face.
Three card types, themed to three legendary creatures: Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Roswell alien.
Actress Lucille Ball reportedly had a strange thing happen to her while filming a movie along California's Pacific coast during World War II. What happened?
Answer: B
Multiple-choice questions about strange-but-real phenomena. Players answer secretly and reveal at the same time.
Q: In 1933 footprints reportedly left by a sea serpent on a beach around Britain's Loch Ness were determined to be a hoax.
A: Fact. The footprints were faked by a London big game hunter using a dried hippo foot.
Fact-or-fiction trivia. Is the Patterson Bigfoot video a hoax? Do red M&M's cause cancer?
The worst advice you've received.
A topic — and everyone tells a one-up story. Each vote you receive earns a point; bluffers can be challenged, with points changing hands depending on who was telling the truth.
Browse the deck online
Every card from the original 2003 Pocket Edition, plus unreleased expansion decks that never made it to print.
One sealed Pocket Edition box, shipped in a padded mailer. Final stock from the original print run.
Twelve sealed copies in their original retailer carton from the 2003 print run. Free US shipping.
First player to 10 points wins. Shorten or lengthen the game by adjusting the target.
Tall Tales was the first product released by Stalefish Labs, on February 16, 2003 — designed in Nashville, pitched as a lounge game for cafés, road trips, and any situation where unfolding a board game wasn’t going to work. Original retail was $14.95.
The Bigfoot, Nessie, and Roswell alien artwork was by Micah Laaker, working out of Iguana Studios in New York. He went on to lead UX teams at Yahoo and direct product design at Google.
The original Tall Tales website ran until the early 2010s, complete with Bigfoot banner ads, an alien named Roz, and a wallpaper download page. Some of those graphics live on in the look of this page.
Three expansion decks were designed between 2003 and 2005. None of them ever shipped — the second print run was already on shelves, and a third never happened.
That archive is no longer locked away. Every never-printed card — Discovery, Down Home, and Hollywood — is now public via the card browser above. Filter by deck to see what was sitting in folders for two decades.
| Players | 4 or more |
| Ages | 10 and up |
| Play time | 30–45 minutes |
| Format | Trivia + storytelling card game |
| Box dimensions | 4.5″ × 4.5″ × 2.5″ |
| Card count | 120 |
| First released | February 2003 |
| Status | Out of print — final stock |
| Designer | Stalefish Labs |
Be first to know about the next edition
Sealed stock won't last. When the next print run is ready — or the unreleased expansion decks finally surface — we'll send one email. Nothing else.
May 5, 2026 · by Michael Morrison
Article 2 of 2 in Tall Tales Retrospective
Tall Tales debuted at Toy Fair 2003 during a record blizzard. Fox 5 News dubbed it 'the cell phone of games.' Then two scouts from Pixar mentioned a movie about cars.
May 1, 2026 · by Michael Morrison
Article 1 of 2 in Tall Tales Retrospective
How a failed 2002 Starbucks pitch shaped the design of Tall Tales, a card game built around small tables, simple rules, and quiet evenings with my brother.