Little Wooden Cubes

(Just because I’m not making videos these days doesn’t mean I can’t tell you about games I’m digging. So here! Have an average written review in place of an above-average video review!)

Most of my issues with word games stem from the fact that they usually rely on having a dictionary for a brain. Most people, though, are usually incapable of basic motor functions like breathing or eating if you replace their grey matter with a copy of the Official Scrabble Book of Words. For those people, we need a different type of word game. With that in mind, I should probably review the game that my wife and played pretty much non-stop for a week after getting it.

Both players think of a six letter word. The official rules try to make sure the word is as generic as possible and it wasn’t until I was sitting there looking at SH _ _ TY that I probably should have emphasized to my friend (and new player) that slang is probably also not a good idea.

Players take turns coming up with words that they think might contain letters in their opponent’s words. At first, you’re each guessing with two and three letter words, with each subsequent guess shifted to the left or right and/or higher in letter count. Like this:

Your opponent then compares your guess to their word and calculates the score for that guess. For each letter in the guess word that lines up perfectly with the secret word, then that’s 1000 points. Otherwise the letter only scores 250. The guesser writes down their score for that guess, and then the roles flip. Back and forth it goes, with each player using logic and their in-depth knowledge of two, three and four-letter words (no slang, remember!) to deduce their opponents secret word. The final guess always gives you a chance to take a shot at what the word is, with tons of points awarded to you if you get it right.

Technically, you play one round with a six letter word and the one with a seven letter word and add up the points, but as we segue into my thoughts on the game, I’ll say that points as anything other than as feedback for guesswords is silly. Why? Because this game is HARD. You’ll feel like a champ if you come even close to getting the secret word right, let alone scoring any kind of points.

It’s difficult because you have so few guesses to really feel like you’ve narrowed anything down. Your first guess out of the gate is a two letter word that lines up with the first two letters of the secret word followed by a three letter word. Then you don’t come back to that very first letter for another SIX GUESSES. Since you have so few guesses, you spend most of your time trying different combinations of letters you’ve had success with, like “dog”, “god”, “good”, “goo”, and so on. By the time you’ve locked one letter into place, you’re almost out of guesses. Good luck with that final guess when the only thing you know is that the first letter is an “S” and that there’s an “O” in there somewhere.

But maybe the game is supposed to be hard. Maybe the points do matter as a way of determining the winner (or in most of my games, the one who sucked the least). But if we focus on points, then it becomes less about actually guessing the word and more about trying to come up with as many combinations of words with the known letters as possible. To me, that’s the equivalent of playing Human Tetris by smashing through the oddly-shaped moving wall rather than trying to fit into it. Yeah, you’ll be left standing, but that’s not really a lot of fun.

Why’d we stop playing it? I’m not sure, actually. I think we just got tired of never being able to guess each other’s word. Or maybe I got tired of never being able to guess her word. One of those things is almost certainly true. But I think we might break it out again. I’ve ground up a couple of Meriam-Webster’s and added them to my diet so I think I might be ready to take on her big brain again.

But despite my whining, I actually think this game is a great time. It’s portable, it’s got wide appeal, and it’s easy to explain. Twenty bucks is a bit pricey for what you get, and I’m not sure how much replacement pads cost. But if that doesn’t bother you or you can get it cheaper, then I’d consider it worth it. If you want to play with points, go for it. If you just want to focus on guessing the other person’s word, then it still makes for a fun game. It’s definitely fun little game to play with a grandparent or other elderly person who enjoys crosswords and/or Sudoku puzzles. Because that’s all people that age enjoy, right? That and applesauce.