This is a new one. I was ready to write up this week’s random game when inspiration struck, twisting the whole gameplay idea on its ear like some sort of judo master. So I’ll have to ask you to cut me some slack if the game seems even less coherent than usual; I’m literally making it up as I go along as I follow my black-belted muse across the dojo.
The game is Wordsmith. Its random game idea came from Boardgamizer, which gave me this pile of awesome to work with:
Mechanics: Word Game
Theme: Superheroes, England
Victory: Place All Your Pieces
The title came from Kevin Wilson, a brilliant game designer who took 30 seconds out of his day to give a name to this little experiment. So if his new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles board game is 30 seconds less amazing than it could have otherwise been, you can blame me.
Overview
First of all, that theme has got to go. Not only did I already do superheroes, but “England” doesn’t really work as a theme for word game. Actually, virtually no themes do—word games are, by their nature, abstract. So let’s just ignore the “theme” element for now and get back to it later.
Now, as for the game itself: Everyone has a hand of cards with words on them. Players take turns playing cards in order to add their words onto sentences on the table. The first player to play his or her last card wins.
Components
The only components are cards. Each card has a word on it. Some cards might have multiple words (like “his/her/their” or “a/an”) so we don’t need to fill up the deck with variations.
- Cards are color-coded by parts of speech, so all the nouns are one color, all the verbs another,
etc. (I don’t know if it’s strictly necessary, but it appeals to my control freak sense.) - Some cards have special icons on them when are triggered either when you play them, or when you play on them. For example, if a card has a black dot on it, it means that when you play it, you can immediately play another card from your hand. Or if it has a diamond, it means that when you play it, you can play another card to start a new sentence. Or if it has a star, you can make an opponent draw a card.
- Some cards might be worth more points than others, a la letters in Scrabble. If that’s the case, then you’ll probably need some sort of score-tracker, if only a pencil and paper.
Playing the Game
At the start of the game, lay out a number of random cards equal to the number of players. These are the seeds of the sentences.
On your turn, you can play a card next to a card in play to add onto the sentence. You may play it at the front or the end of the sentence.
If there is no grammatically legal place for you to play a card, you must draw a card.
If you play your last card, you win!
Game End and Winning
I repeat: If you play your last card, you win!
Seriously, though, I suspect the game would be better with points scored through strategic play, and being the first one to go out merely scores you some bonus points. But for the sake of this exercise (which requires victory to go to the one who plays all his or her pieces), and because I’m still following the judo-chopping muse, let’s leave it for now.
Analysis: Game Design Challenges
- Victory Points: Winning by being the first one to play the last card seems like it could result in short, unsatisfying games. Even if they’re long enough, it could be anticlimactic. If this is the case, we can add point values to the cards so that there are interesting choices about how to play cards to score the most points.
- Enough Words: It would be challenging to find the proper mix of fun, unique words and boring-but-necessary words like “is” and “that.” We can cheat by putting multiple words on a single card, but still, it might be tricky.
- Grammar Police: Unlike most word games, in which all you have to do is spell a word (and you can check your work with any dictionary), this game requires you to write grammatically correct sentences. While it shouldn’t be that hard, some players may (a) fear the grammar, or (b) have trouble with the grammar. Problem (a) is mostly a marketing issues, and we can mitigate (b) by what words we choose to include, but they remain challenges all the same.
Analysis: High Points
- Familiarity: Since the game can be described as “magnetic poetry meets Scrabble,” players can grok it almost immediately.
- Party Game: By making the words fun and silly, we can hit that Apples to Apples sweet spot where much of the fun of the game comes from the amusing combinations that players come up with.
- Superheroes After All: While word games are, as I mentioned earlier, abstract by default, I think you could actually give this one any number of different themes just by changing the words. For instance, you could replace the standard nouns and verbs with the names of superheroes and words like “blast” and “punch” and “save.” Or for fantasy fair, swap in “knights” and “wizards” who “slay” and “summon.”
And just like that, the muse is gone. Looking back at the fallen warriors she’s left moaning in her wake, I think this is a game I can work with—and that theming it might actually be a fun place to start. If you think you’d be interested in seeing such a thing, let me know in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter.
