Friday Filler: Paperpack

Paperback: A Novel Deckbuilding Game is a clash of the old and the new. It combines concept of classic word games like Scrabble with the very modern playstyle of the deckbuilding mechanic from games like Dominion and Star Realms. In Paperback, each player is novelist, desperately writing one novel after novel, jumping from one genre to another with titles such as The Chinatown Connection, Dead Planet, and The Angel of Death, all to satisfy the voracious demands of their editors. Pump out enough of this pulp fiction and perhaps the novelist will get a bestseller and make a mint! That though is the extent of the theme in Paperback, the game being more mechanical than thematic, since what each player will be doing is spelling out words using Letter cards and generating a score which can be used to buy both more Letter cards and Fame cards, which will be used to spell out more valuable words and so on and so on until the end of the game when the player with the most Fame points from his Fame cards wins the game. Paperback is published by Fowers Games, best known for the heist themed Burgle Bros. and Burgle Bros 2: The Casino Capers. It is designed to be played by two to five players, aged ten and up, and has a suggested playing time of forty-five minutes.

Each player begins play with a deck of ten cards—five Wild cards and the letters ‘T’, ‘R’, ‘S’, ‘L’, and ‘N’. On his turn a player will five cards from his deck and attempt to spell a word using both the cards drawn, whether letter cards or Wild cards and the current Common card, which anyone can use, typically a vowel. If it is a viable word—it cannot be a name, place, or proper noun—then it generates a score. Whilst Wild cards can substitute for any letter and so help spell a word, they do add to the Score value of the word. The value of this score be used to either purchase a new letter or letter combination card (such as ‘ST’ or ‘ER’) or a Fame card. Letters purchased will all generate a greater score than the base cards in a player’s deck, but they often have special abilities. For example, the letter ‘M’ costs seven cents to purchase and generates a score of two, but if the word is correctly spelled, it doubles the total score value of the word. It also has to be placed in the trash after use. The ‘V’ costs seven cents to purchase and generates a score of four, but if the word is correctly spelled, it allows a player to draw an extra card on his next and potentially spell out a bigger word. Some letters are Attack cards, which means that their special ability affects other players. For example, the ‘H’ letter costs six cents to purchase, and generates a score of four, but if the word is correctly spelled, its attack is that the other player cannot purchase anything with a value of greater than eight cents. The ‘Q’ letter costs eight cents to purchase and generates a score of five, but if the word is correctly spelled, its attack restricts another player to just using the ability on the one his next turn.

Alternatively, a player can purchase a Fame card, each of which has a cost and depicts the cover of a fairly pulpy book from various genres. For example, The Angel of Death is a pulp novel, whilst Dead Planet is Science fiction. These generate four, seven, ten, or fifteen fame points, so generating enough score from the correctly spelled words is the aim of the game. When added to a player’s deck, the fame cards work like Wild cards in that they can be used to substitute for any letter, but do not add to a player’s score.

Game play continues until either of two conditions are met. One is to exhaust two stacks of the fame cards, each being organised by price and adjusted according to the number of players. The other is when the last Common letter card is taken. Throughout play, the current Common letter card can be used by all of the players to help them spell their words, but if a player spells a word of sufficient length, he can add the current Common letter card to his deck. This will bring in a new Common letter card into play and if a player wants to add it to his deck, then he needs to spell an even longer word. There are only four Common letter cards available throughout the game and the length of word required to add them to a player’s decks goes from seven to eight to nine, and then ten letters long. Once the end of the game is reached, each player adds up his Fame points from both the Wild cards and the fame cards in his deck, and the player with highest total wins the game.

The play of Paperback is about increasing word length. Increase the length of the words that he can spell, and player has a greater Score with which to buy better or more letter cards and fame cards, and potentially more abilities to bring into play. It entirely possible that a player can spell a word and bring two, three, four, or more abilities into play. Balanced against keeping an eye out for letter cards with special abilities, a player needs to keep an eye on the letter cards available and what he thinks he can spell with them. He also needs to bear in mind that the higher the score a word will generate, the more difficult it will be to successfully spell a word with it is. He will also want to maintain a good mix of consonants and vowels too, along with the two-letter combinations on some letter cards. Favour one letter type over the other and a player will have difficulty finding words that he can spell. It is also possible to combine special abilities for enhanced effects, but these are not as common as in other deck-building games.

In comparison to other deckbuilding games, Paperback is not necessarily all about trying a way to find a way to get rid of the initial cards in a player’s deck. This is because there are special abilities which work with the Wild cards in a player’s deck and all of the cards in a player’s deck, whether Wild cards or starting letter cards, are useful throughout the game. Nor is Paperback as adversarial as other deckbuilding games. There are elements of it with the attack cards, but these impede player for a turn rather than directly attacking him. Rather it is competitive, not combative.

Beyond the base game, Paperback adds various options and extra rules. These include adding a reward if a player helps another who is stuck on what word he can spell out using his current hand, adding awards and themes as bonuses to towards a player’s final score, playing in simultaneous mode, and even a co-operative mode played against the game itself. These all change the game in various ways, but do not stray too far from the core mechanics of spelling words, purchasing further letters and Fame cards, and so on.

As clever a combination as Paperback is, it does suffer from the problems of both game types. As a word game, players with greater word knowledge and vocabularies will be at an advantage and often, players with lesser word knowledge and vocabularies will sometimes lead to slower play as they try and work out what they can spell. The deckbuilding means that it can be more adversarial and fiddlier with a lot of cards than a word game like Scrabble. Yet, Paperback does not rely on needing to know lots of short, high-scoring words or needing to have to put them on a board building from what is already there, and as deckbuilding games, the focus is on the letters rather than the special abilities per se. However, the use of the special abilities on the cards do go towards countering the spelling, so that a player who is more used to word games such as Scrabble can still play against players more used to deckbuilding games.

Physically, Paperback is well produced and well designed. The cards are colour-coded according to cost making them easy to tell them apart, the artwork on the Fame cards—each is done as a pulp novel—is excellent, and the cards are all easy to ready. The rulebook is also decently done. Lastly, it all fits into a neat little box which comes with dividers so that everything is neatly organised and easy to find.

Paperback: A Novel Deckbuilding Game is a novel clash of two game types that surprisingly, work well together and can be used to introduce the fan of one type to the other. So, a fan of word games can be introduced to a deckbuilding game (that fan of word games also likely to be used to family games too), and the fan of deckbuilding games to word games. As a word game Paperback forces a player to strategise beyond the spelling to gain extra abilities through latter cards’ special abilities and as a deckbuilding game, it forces a player to think about what he can do—rather spell—right now rather focus on the strategy. Paperback: A Novel Deckbuilding Game is a witty, wordy game, that as hybrid deserves a place on your shelf between the traditional and the modern game designs.

Friday Filler: Unspeakable Words — The Call of Cthulhu Word Game

Unspeakable Words — The Call of Cthulhu Word Game is a word game with difference. Most word games require each player to spell out words and then score points based on things like their frequency of use or complexity of use. This game—originally published by Playroom Entertainment in 2007, and given a ‘Deluxe Edition’ in 2015 following a successful Kickstarter campaign, gives the word a Lovecraftian twist. In Unspeakable Words a player spells out words, perfectly ordinary and not at all Eldritch, but scores points based on the number of angles in the letters in the word so spelled. The first player to score a total of one hundred points wins. However, there is a catch. The more angles there are in a word spelled, the greater the likelihood of the Hounds of Tindalos using the angles to ease themselves out of time and so drive a player insane. Fortunately, this is only temporary, and a player can still continue spelling out words in an effort to win the game. If it happens five times though, a player is driven permanently insane and is out of the game.

And that pretty much sums up Unspeakable Words — The Call of Cthulhu Word Game, a card game designed for between two and eight players, for ages ten and up. Unspeakable Words — The Call of Cthulhu Word Game Deluxe Edition comes with one-hundred-and-forty-eight Letter Cards, a glow-in-the-dark twenty-sided die, forty Cthulhu Pawns in eight colours, a dice bag, and a four-page rules leaflet. The Cthulhu Pawns are cute, and serve as each player’s Sanity Points; the art is drawn by John Kovalic throughout, giving the game a consistently cute look; and every Letter Card is accorded a score for the number of angles in the letter and illustrated with a creature or entity of the Mythos. So ‘S is for Shub-Niggurath’ and scores no points because it has no angles, but ‘A is for Azathoth’ and scores a player five points because it has lots of angles!

On a turn, a player has seven cards with which to spell out a word. He cannot spell out proper nouns or abbreviations or acronyms, but he can spell out multiples. Once every player has accepted the word, the spelling player totals the value of its angles and attempts to save against their sanity-draining effect. This requires a roll equal to or over the value of angles on the game’s die. If the player succeeds, the word is accepted and its score added to the player’s running total. The player then refreshes his hand. Once a word has been accepted, it cannot be spelt out again by another player, though if it has a multiple, that could. Once used, that word  cannot be spelled out again during the rest of the game.

If the spelling player fails his roll by rolling under the value of angles, the word is still kept, but the player loses a Cthulhu Pawn. Once he runs out of pawns, he is out of the game. At just one Cthulhu Pawn, a player can use his Letter Cards to spell out any word, no matter how weird or Eldritch it might be. The point is, is that with just the one Cthulhu Pawn, the player is disturbed enough to find any word acceptable even if others cannot.

And that really is it to Unspeakable Words — The Call of Cthulhu Word Game.

There are a couple of small quirks, though. The first is that the ‘Push Your Luck’ element of a player testing his Sanity means that a player must balance the need to gain the points from his word against the likelihood of failing the Sanity check! The second is that this balance will tip towards lower and lower word values as a player’s Sanity drops lower and lower. Then there is fun of being insane and being able to spell of almost any meaning the player wants from the Letter Cards in his hand. Which is even more fun if the player can define what the word actually means! Lastly, it is clear that the designers and artist John Kovalic have delved deep into the Lovecraftian mythos, for some of the cards are obscure, such as ‘Kaajh’Kaalbh’ and ‘R is for Rlim Shaikorth’, alongside the more obvious ‘C is for Cthulhu’ and ‘N is for Nyarlathotep’. The most knowing card is ‘H is for _____’. Or should that be ‘H is for _____’, ‘H is for _____’, ‘H is for _____’?

There are two downsides to Unspeakable Words — The Call of Cthulhu Word Game. One is player elimination, but fortunately, the game is short enough and since player elimination is likely to happen towards the end of the game, that no player is going to be out of the game for very long. The other is the price. Unspeakable Words — The Call of Cthulhu Word Game is  relatively expensive for what is a short filler. That said, this is the deluxe version of the game and it looks very nice.

Unspeakable Words — The Call of Cthulhu Word Game Deluxe Edition is a solid, fun filler. Amusingly illustrated, it presents an entertaining, eldritch twist upon the spelling game that will be enjoyed by family and hobby gamers.

Friday Filler: Movable Type

Movable Type: The Pick-and-pass word game for families, friends, and word nuts is the card game of drafting letters, spelling words, and winning letters to create one final game winning word, all whilst attempting to meet the challenge presented by an array of classic authors, from Ada Lovelace and Agatha Christie to Oscar Wilde and Lu Xun. Published by Uncanny Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Movable Type is designed to be played by between one and six players in roughly twenty-five minutes or so. In actuality, it is designed for two to six players, but the rules do include a solo variant.

The consists of some one-hundred-and ten cards. These consist of seventy-six Letter Cards and nine Vowel Cards, nineteen Author Cards, five Round Tracking Cards, and one Solo Game Card. The Letter and Vowel Cards are clearly marked with their letter and vary in point value from one for A, E, I, and O up to six for J and K. Each Author Challenge Card is nicely illustrated with a portrait of the author and provides either an extra letter, an extra syllable, or an action. So for example, the Johannes Gutenberg Author Challenge gives a player the letter L to add to his collection if he plays a twelve letter word; the Louisa May Alcott Author Challenge allows a player to add the top card from the deck to his collection if he plays a word shorter than anyone else; and the H.P. Lovecraft Author Challenge gives a player the ING vowel to add to his collection if he plays a word without any vowels in it! (The designer, of course, getting to make some literary jokes here.)

Movable Type is played over five rounds. In the first four rounds, each player receives a hand of five Letter Cards. He chooses one of these cards and places it face down in front of him. He then passes his hand to neighbouring player—the direction changing from round to round—and receives a hand from his other neighbouring player. Players continue drafting and passing the cards until they have five Letter Cards in front of him. At the end of the drafting process, each player attempts to spell a word using both the letters they drafted and some of the common letters and vowels on the table. Anyone can use these common letters in their word and they can also use letters twice if they appear as doubles in the word. Once everyone has revealed and scored their word, the player with highest scoring word gets to draft any of the letters on the table into his collection. Then the player with next highest scoring word gets to draft any of these letters and so on and so on down to the player with the lowest scoring word. If a player’s word fulfills the conditions of an Author Challenge Card, he takes the appropriate card too.

Over the course of the first four rounds, each player is trying to win as many Letter Cards and Author Challenge Cards as they can to add to their collection. It is these cards which each player will use to spell out a word in the fifth and final word in the game’s last round. There is an extra challenge here in that a player cannot look at the cards in his collection once they have been added to it—he has to rely upon his memory as to what his collection contains until the fifth round when he can use them. The player with the highest scoring word created using the Letter and Vowel Cards in his collection in the fifth round wins the game.

Physically, Movable Type is simply, if handsomely presented. The cards are of decent quality and easy to read, whilst the Author Challenge Cards are pleasingly done and themed. The rules are easy to understand and easy to teach. The solo variant is played against a separate Author Challenge Card, called the Brontë Sisters Solo-Bot, in which a player attempts to play cards which outscore the sisters who get the Letter Cards that the player does not use. The playing time is the same as the full game, but the rules and mechanics are actually more complex. It should be noted though, that like most word games, having a dictionary to hand to settle any word disputes is a necessity.

To be fair, Movable Type is not going to be a game for everyone. After all, not everyone is good at spelling or enjoys it. The likelihood is that players who are will have an advantage over those who are not. Movable Type is unlikely to be a game for the latter, whilst the former will doubtless enjoy it. The game is light enough for casual players to enjoy and challenge enough for more experienced players to play at the same level.

Initially, the play of Movable Type is counter intuitive as it would seem that a player’s word score from round to round should add up to something, perhaps a final total at the end of the game. That it does not—through the drafting mechanic, the Author Challenge Cards, and the hidden Letter Cards—actually lifts what would otherwise be a simplistic and obvious word game into a design with some depth, providing an extra level of challenge and thoughtful play. Movable Type: The Pick-and-pass word game for families, friends, and word nuts presents an interesting twist upon spelling and word games and should appeal to ardent and casual gamers who like both. 

Battleships with Words

Codenames is the Spiel des Jahres—or ‘Game of the Year—award winner for 2016 and that is probably enough of a recommendation to try it and add it to your games collection. Published by Czech Games Edition, it is an espionage-themed word game that works as a party game and which can be played by between two and eight players. The players are split into two teams and one person on each team takes the role of their team’s ‘Spymaster’. His mission is to communicate the code names of his spies to his fellow team members; it is their task to understand the clues given by the spymaster and identity the spies. It is designed to be played by players aged fourteen and over and a game should last no more than twenty minutes.

Codenames consists of several decks of cards. These are the Codename cards (double-sided with a word like tube, bugle, Jupiter, palm, and so on); sixteen Agent cards in two colours (red and blue, used to identity Codenames by each side); a red/blue Double-Agent card (used to indicate the starting team); seven Innocent Bystander cards (used to indicate non-Agents); one Assassin card (used to indicate the Assassin who if identified by a team means that the identifying team loses the game); forty Key cards (these determine the location of the Agents, Innocent Bystanders, and Assassin on the grid); plus a rulebook and timer.

To set up the game, twenty-five Codenames are randomly drawn and arranged in a five-by-five grid. A Key card is drawn and shared between the two Spymasters. It shows them where their Agents, Innocent Bystanders, and Assassin are on the grid. On a team’s turn, its Spymaster gives a clue to the rest of his team. This clue consists of one word and one number. The word must be associated with—but not the same as—one or more of the Codename cards in the grid. The number indicates the number of Codename cards that the clue is associated with. So for example, a Spymaster has the following Codenames that need identifying: ‘America’, ‘Cap’, ‘Disease’, ‘Ham’, ‘Horn’, ‘Mail’, ‘Spring’, and ‘Whip’. So the Spymaster decides to give the clue ‘Supersoldier Two’ to indicate ‘America’ and ‘Cap’, hoping that his team knows its superheroes (or movies). 

The team now tries to guess the Codenames from this clue. If the team picks an Innocent Bystander instead of a Codename, its turn ends. If the team picks a Codename belonging to the other team, its turn ends. If the team picks the Assassin instead of a Codename, it has lost and the game is over. A team must make one guess on its turn and can choose to make fewer guesses than the number given by its Spymaster. A team that correctly guesses Codenames equal to the number given by its Spymaster can take an extra guess. This is useful if a team wants to return to a clue given in previous turn.

The first team to identify all of its Codenames wins the game.

At the heart of Codenames are two asymmetrical challenges. For the Spymaster, the challenge is, “Can I give clues to my team members that they will understand?”, whilst for the team members the challenge is, “Can we interpret and understand our Spaymaster’s clues?”. This requires no little thought by both sides, hampered of course, by the timer. 

On the downside, the game’s theme is a bit too light and if you do not like word games, then Codenames is not something that you will necessarily enjoy. If you do like word games, crossword puzzles, and so on, then Codenames’ simple design is both a delight and challenge. The game is also simple enough to work as a party game, but still be challenging without being overwhelming in its mechanics or appearance. The fact that it is a word game means that it is approachable and accessible to a non-gaming audience, a la Scrabble (yet better). Of course, it also works as a good filler game. The high number of Codename cards and Key cards (the latter for determining Codename location on the grid) means a wide variety of Codenames and grid layouts and thus a high replay value.

My gaming group described Codenames as being ‘Word Battleships’. The fact that there is a hidden grid involved and the game involves finding things on said grid and it easy to see the comparison. That said, Codenames is a light and clever game that will challenge groups large and small again and again.

A Century For Your Family

If you are gamer the likelihood is that you have more than a few gaming books on your shelf. The likelihood is that you will have few books if any about gaming itself on your shelf. There are any number of good reasons for this, but it can be put down to the fact that few such books have been written and to the other fact that most gamers prefer to buy a book about or for their favourite RPG rather than some generic book about various games or gaming in general. I do not fall under the category of “most gamers” in that I have more than a few gaming books on my shelves and elsewhere – in fact I have hundreds. I also have a few books about gaming itself on my shelves – there not being enough to occupy more than the single, quite small shelf – and most of them have been enjoyable reads and some of them have been useful. So I do have copies of Fantasy Roleplaying Games by Doctor J. Eric Holmes and Ian Livingstone’s Dicing with Dragons as well as Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games by Lawrence Schick and Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball’s Things We Think About Games. Each in their own way is a product of their times, but still a good book nevertheless. The latest addition to limited selection is Family Games: The 100 Best from Green Ronin Publishing.

As the title suggests, Family Games: The 100 Best is sequel to the Origins Award winning Hobby Games: The 100 Best, a collection of essays in which the hobby’s crème de la crème – designers, authors, and publishers had the chance to write about the games that they liked, the games that they thought to be clever, and the games that inspired them. The games discussed included RPGs, CCGs, miniatures, wargames, and board games, with contributions from luminaries such as Gary Gygax, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, Monte Cook, Greg Costikyan, Marc W. Miller, Alan R. Moon, Sandy Petersen, Greg Stafford, and Martin Wallace amongst many, many others.

Family Games: The 100 Best does exactly the same with many of the authors returning, except that whereas Hobby Games: The 100 Best only delved back fifty years into the history of our hobby – back to the start of our hobby with games such as Gettysburg and Diplomacy, both from Avalon Hill and both dating from the late 1950s – the new volume goes back almost another sixty years to discuss some of the earliest commercially available board games on a widespread basis. Thus we start chronologically with John Wick writing about Pit, released in 1904 by Parker Brothers, before going over many of the great games that have figured in the contributors and readers’ childhoods and beyond to come right up to date with Rob Heinsoo’s contribution about Small World, published by Days of Wonder in 2009. In between appear short essays about a further ninety-eight games, bringing the total to one hundred, though a whole lot more are discussed if you take into account the foreword by Mike Gray (designer of Fortress America and Shogun); the introduction by the book’s editor, James Lowder; Wil Wheaton’s Afterword; and the two appendices. All of the entries though, describe games that can be played and enjoyed by children, by the family, and by non-gamers without the need to memorise lengthy books of rules, without the need to analyse every move in detail, and without too outré a theme.

The same format as Hobby Games: The 100 Best is retained for Family Games: The 100 Best though. Arranged in alphabetical order, each entry is comprised of its name, designer, publisher and year of publication, plus its suggested number of players and age range, followed by the essay itself before ending with a short biography of the essay’s author. Each essay itself includes the background and history for each game, a description of how it is played, suggests some tactics, and gives a chance for each writer to tell you why he thinks his choice of game is worthy of its inclusion here. Rather than tell you in laborious detail what exactly is in Family Games: The 100 Best, I can show you. Or rather Matthew Tarbit can.

What is readily apparent about the selection given in Family Games: The 100 Best is that it is much broader in scope than was Hobby Games: The 100 Best. As its title suggests the majority of its entries are written with the family in mind rather the hobbyist gamer, which means fewer Euro style games and even fewer RPGs. In fact, only three RPGs make an appearance – John Wick’s Cat, Green Ronin Publishing/Firefly Games’ Faery’s Tale Deluxe, and Chaosium, Inc.’s Prince Valiant. All three are very light, and can easily be run with or for older children, hence their inclusion.

The selection is also more American. Titles such as Candy Land, Fortress America, and Game of Life (all three from Milton Bradley), plus the Stat-O-Matic Game Company’s Stat-O-Matic Baseball all point to that. Many children’s classics are included too, such as Battleship (Milton Bradley), the aforementioned Candy Land, Connect Four (Milton Bradley), Mouse Trap (Ideal), Sorry! (Parker Brothers), and Uno (Uno Games/International Games), as are some very traditional classic family games like Clue(do) (Parker Brothers), Monopoly (Parker Brothers), Scrabble (Selchow & Righter), and Yahtzee (E. S. Lowe). These are joined by the adult games Cranium (Cranium, Inc.), Pictionary (Western Publishing Company), Trivial Pursuit (Parker Brothers), and Wits & Wagers (North Star Games LLC). There are of course lots of essays about other games that from the rail game Eurorails (Mayfair Games) and the abstract Blokus (Educational Insights) to the card driven wargame Memoir ‘44 (Days of Wonder) and the modern co-operative Pandemic (Z-man Games).

What is so interesting about Family Games: The 100 Best is that it includes many games that unless I have more children I am unlikely to ever play again, such as Mouse Trap. Similarly, I have no plans to play Trivial Pursuit again either. Yet I read the essays on all of these games, and the others, with interest, because each shed new light on said game such that I might, just might play these games again. Well, maybe not Mouse Trap. Even where I might disagree with the author of essay or with the inclusion of a particular game – and such occurrences were far and few between, the actual essay was itself at least worth reading.

Once all of the essays are out of the way, our dork and everyone’s dork gets to extol the virtues of being a gamer and in particular, a gamer-dad. Wil Wheaton’s afterword sort of dovetails (in the same way that the dovetail you made back in woodwork class at thirteen sort of dovetails) into the first of the appendices, of which Family Games: The 100 Best is rounded out with two. The first, “Games and Education” by David Millians provides an introduction to using games as part of the education process and to that end comes with several pages of useful references. The second appendix is “Family Games in Hobby Games: The 100 Best” and gives short descriptions of the twenty entries in that volume that can be considered to be family games.

Family Games: The 100 Best is about celebrating not just our hobby, but about celebrating what got you into the hobby. It is about the games that you played as children, that almost every gamer played as a child, and in many cases still does, whether that be with his children or because they are still good games. It is also a book of reviews – and as a reviewer, some day I would love to be able to contribute to a future volume – telling you how good the games you like are and how good the games you liked were, and if enjoyed reading about one game, then the opportunity to read about another game is just two or three pages away. It is also a book to dip into or to pick up, read, and then put down again – it does not need to be read a single sitting. All good reasons why someone who read and liked Hobby Games: The 100 Best will equally enjoy Family Games: The 100 Best.

When Hobby Games: The 100 Best came out, I gave it as a gift, and in all likelihood, I will give this new book as a gift too, but in that there is a difference between the two. I would not give Hobby Games: The 100 Best to a non-gamer as a gift, but I would with Family Games: The 100 Best. The reason being that a non-gamer is more likely to recognise the titles of the games being written about and once he has read about the games that he heard of or played, the likelihood is that he will be curious enough to read about the other games described. Whether that curiosity is enough for him to look for or try those other games is another matter, but in its own way, Family Games: The 100 Best is an excellent primer for playing games, and a potential stepping stone into the hobby.

It ain't Scrabble

I begin with a confession. I do not enjoy playing Scrabble. Considering that I like to write, and I enjoy words and reading, some might find that surprising. I find it all a bit tedious and lacking in substance. Plus from the two recent television programs devoted to the game – the BBC has recently broadcast a small season devoted to the playing of games and games history, playing Scrabble seems to have come down to the sound of the word and learning by rote rather than in understanding and speaking the language. Nevertheless, my dislike of Scrabble does not mean that I will not look at the occasional word game. Thus I picked up a copy of LeCardo.

LeCardo is an English card game designed for two to four players, aged eight and up, published by Leo Marshall Designs. Where Scrabble has the players scoring points by constructing single words, points are scored in LeCardo by constructing one or more compound words or phrases such as “off side” or “wind power.” The constructed compounds can be whole words, be connected by a hyphen, or have spaces between.

The game comes as a deck of fifty-five cards. The cards themselves are done on a light and glossy card stock and are easy to handle. Three of fifty-five cards give the game’s rules while another lists all of the cards in the game along with their score values. The remaining fifty-two cards are all word cards, each marked with a single word, a score value, and an appropriate line art illustration. Each illustration is colour coded according to the card’s score value, so the blue cards (such as “over” or “under”) are all marked with a one; the red cards with a two (like “line” or “work); the orange cards with a three (“by” or “top”); the green cards with a four (“bed” or “word”); and the pink card with a five (“paper”). Note that there is only the one card that is worth five points.

At game’s start, the cards are shuffled and each player receives a hand of seven cards. On his turn a player lays his cards on the table attempting to form compound words. Cards are placed so that the new compounds read left to right or down, but not right to left or up. New cards can be played alongside existing cards so that much like Scrabble, a grid of words is formed. Once a player has played as many cards as he is able to, he adds up the total score from the new compounds that he formed during his turn, refreshes his hand, and play passes to the next player.

All new compound words have to be agreed upon by everyone around the table. Should a new compound be disputed its cards are returned to the player who attempted to place them down.

If a player cannot place any cards, he can instead discard three cards and replace them with new ones from the deck. He also loses his turn. The game ends once all of the cards have been played or when no one can play any cards. The winner is of course the player with the highest score.

The game is designed to last no more than fifteen minutes and with less than four players our games rarely last longer than ten. With four players we found that the game comes with enough cards to last about five or six rounds and no more. A good sized playing surface is required though, as the card grid can spread out a little.

LeCardo is quick and easy, and is what can be described as an intelligent filler game. For younger players it probably has an educational aspect, but even for adults it requires a little thought. I much preferred playing this to Scrabble and the group that I tried it not only liked it, but were happy to play it again. This is recommendation enough for LeCardo to remain on the games shelf downstairs where it can be found and be brought out to play with ease.