Apartment Game

The Apartment Game (아파트 게임) is the hand-stacking game that Rose of BLACKPINK taught Bruno Mars, and the reason their single “APT.” opens with a chant of “apateu, apateu”. The game is older than the song by a long way. It is a staple of Korean university nights out: everyone piles their hands in the middle, someone calls a floor number, the hands climb from the bottom of the pile to the top one at a time, and whoever’s hand arrives on the called floor drinks. It belongs with the other drinking games without cards because the building is made of hands and nothing else.

What you need

• Nothing. Hands and a number
• A drink per player
• 3 or more players. It works with 2 but the maths becomes obvious
• A table to stack on, or a tight circle standing up

Setup

1. Gather in a tight circle with hands reaching the middle. Standing around a table is easiest. Sitting on the floor works too.
2. Pick a leader for the first round. The leader calls the number. The loser of each round leads the next.
3. Agree on hands. The common version uses both hands from every player, put into the pile in any order, so your two hands end up floors apart.
4. Learn the chant. Everyone says “apateu, apateu” together, moving their hands up and down in rhythm, before the pile is built.

How to play the Apartment Game

1. Chant “apateu, apateu” together, hands bobbing up and down. On the last beat, everyone pushes their hands into the middle and piles them up in whatever order they land.
2. The leader calls a number. Any number. That is the floor the building has to reach.
3. The bottom hand moves to the top as everyone says “1”. Whoever owns the hand at the very bottom of the pile pulls it out and lays it flat on top.
4. The new bottom hand moves to the top on “2”. Keep going. Each count, the lowest hand climbs to the roof, and the building gets one floor taller.
5. The hand that moves on the called number loses. If the leader called 9, whoever’s hand goes to the top on “9” is the one who has to drink.
6. Drink, reshuffle, and the loser leads the next round. They chant, they build, they call the next floor.

Counting the floors

Once the pile is built, the outcome is fixed. The hands cycle in order from the bottom, so the hand at position N from the bottom moves on count N, then again on N plus the total number of hands, and so on. With 6 players and both hands in, there are 12 hands in the pile.

Hands in the pile	Floor called	Which hand loses
8 (4 players)	5	5th from the bottom
8 (4 players)	11	3rd from the bottom (11 minus 8)
12 (6 players)	12	The top hand
12 (6 players)	17	5th from the bottom (17 minus 12)
16 (8 players)	30	14th from the bottom (30 minus 16)

Nobody works this out in the moment, which is the point. The pile is built in a second, the count starts straight away, and by the time someone has counted the hands the building is half done.

Variations and house rules

• One hand each. Every player puts in a single hand. Simpler to follow, quicker rounds, and the right version for a group of ten or more where a 20-hand pile falls over.
• Random game opener. In Korea the game often starts with the chant “(name) who loves random games, random game” with the leader’s name in the gap, then straight into “apateu, apateu”. It is the line Rose sings in the song, with her own name in it. Swap in whoever is leading.
• Reverse apartment. The leader calls “down” after the number, and the top hand moves to the bottom instead, counting down from the number to 1. Whoever moves on 1 drinks.
• Two floors. The leader calls two numbers. The hand that moves on the first number is safe; the hand that moves on the second drinks. Twice as long, and the first number acts as a decoy.
• Wrong hand drinks. If the wrong hand moves, or a hand moves late, or someone moves both hands at once, that player drinks and the round restarts. Most tables enforce this whether or not it was agreed.
• Penthouse (house rule). The leader must call a number higher than the hand count, so the pile always cycles at least once. Stops the lazy “3” that ends a round before anyone has moved.
• Song round (house rule). Play the track. Build the pile when the chant starts, call a number on the first chorus, and drink on the next one. Silly, and exactly what the song is for.

Tips

• Keep the count out loud and in rhythm, and make the owner of the moving hand say the number with everyone. Silent piles lose track around floor 9.
• Take rings and watches off. Sixteen hands slapping a pile at speed is how somebody gets a scratched knuckle.
• Pick numbers between 5 and 25. Below 5 the round is over before it starts; above 25 the pile collapses before it gets there.
• A round takes a minute and someone drinks every time, so a sip per loss is the right size. Save the shot-of-soju version for one round at the end, with water on the table.