Letter Detectives

Letter Jam

Do you like word games? Unless your answer is a resounding ‘YES’, then probably move on. If it is, then oh baby, do we have a game for you. This one is a tricky game to explain in words. It’s a co-operative game where the objective is for everyone to unscramble their 5 letter word correctly. Getting to the point where you can even unscramble the letters is the tricky part, and I mean TRICKY, TRICKY, TRICKY, TRICKY.

I’ll try and explain how it works in point form:

1. Get a load of cards
2. Make a 5 letter word from those letters, discard the excess cards.
3. Shuffle the 5 letter word and give it to the player on your left. They and you put the 5 cards face down in front of them.
4. Pick up the first card and place it in a stand facing away from yourself so everyone else can see the letter.
5. If playing with less than 6, put a letter in a stand for each missing player so everyone can see 5 letters plus the back of their own.
6. Put the wild (*) card in the middle.
7. You will now get a set number of clues to help everyone guess their word (10-15 depending on player count).
8. Any player who wants to will make a word from the letters they can see using numbered poker chips to indicate which order in the word the letters are i.e. #1 is the first letter.
9. Everyone will write down the information they get on a sheet in front on them e.g. ?INE (? = your letter you can’t see). That could be WINE or PINE or MINE.
10. Any players who think they know their letter puts its face down and turns up the next one.
11. A player gives another clue, this time you see SWI?E* (* = the wild in the middle), . You are pretty sure you letter is P as it fits both clues, so you put it face down and turn up the second card.
12. Keep doing this until you run out of clue tokens or everyone thinks they have their word. They then unscramble their letters still face down and when everyone has done it, thee big reveal where you turn over the cards letter by letter hoping it spells a word.

At first glance players give what they believe are the best clues, usually long words. But you quickly realize that they aren’t always the best. The best clues are those that allow as many players to figure out their letters as quick as possible. It also forces everyone to give clues, because if only one person gives clues they will never receive information about their word. You can even realize how important the initial word you give your neighbor can have a big impact on how the game goes. On our second game, 4 of the 5 players made words with only 1 vowel, trying to make useful words from W P R W B T * is really hard! That layer of not just trying to make a word, but to try and see that word from every other players perspective is what makes this game such a facsinating puzzle and so tricky. You’ll praise the genius who comes out with a clue that helps 2 or 3 people, and curse the fool whose word is absolutely useless to everyone. Highly recommended, but only if you really like word games.

Detective Club

Designed by one of the creators of Mysterium, this game plays like Dixit crossed with Fake Artist Goes to New York. Never heard of them? That’s OK, they are both really good games.

The premise is that each round, one of the players secretly teams up with another — the Conspirator — and tries to make them guess a secret word using just two illustrated cards. Other players are detectives, who also know the word, but don’t know the identities of each other. Detectives have to find out who the conspirator is, making sure they don’t get accused by their fellow players!

At the start of each round the lead player will look at the hand of 6 cards and find two with a matching theme, says ‘clouds.’ They will write clouds in 4 of the 5 notepads (in a 6 player game) leaving one blank. Then shuffle the pads and give one to each player. 4 now know the word and one doesn’t. The lead player plays one of their cards and in turn order the other players put down a card that shows they know word they saw, the player with the blank tries to use the cards they see to play a card that looks correct. The lead player then plays their second card, followed by everyone else. They then verbally reveal the word and in turn order the players will justify why they picked their cards. After that, a discussion will occur and players vote who they think the conspirator is.

This is a game designed to create fun situations. The art on the cards is crazy weird offering lots of interpretive justification as to why a player may have chosen a card. Frequently you WILL get cards that have nothing to do with the word you received. I had one game with ‘forest’ as the word and the best card I had was an octopus’s tenticles looking foresty. Someone else also had terrible cards in front of them, we accused each other vehimently and ended up splitting the vote. It turned out to be neither of us and the conspirator was just sitting back enjoying the ride.

Its easy to play, works well with kids as young as 7 or 8 (so long as you keep the words simple). The variety is there as its a very different experience playing as the main player, conspirator or regular player. It can play up to 8 players, but does need at least 4 to play. If you own Dixit, you can also just swap in these cards as an alternate set of cards for that game too and vice versa.

Great fun.