Paperback Review

A little while back, I heard about a new word game that was also a deck builder.  This definitely piqued my interest (though I often don't like word games).  That game is Paperback.

In Paperback, each player starts with a deck of 10 cards.  Five of the cards are wilds (worth Fame points, but no money for buying other cards), and the other five are the letters R, S, T, L, and N.  Each turn, a player uses their cards to form a word.  (There is also a "Common" card that they can include in their word.)  Each card used in the word is worth a certain amount of money, and the active player can use that money to buy more card(s) - like any deck builder.  The more expensive cards tend to be less common letters (like X, Q, B, etc.), but are worth more when played, and often have neat abilities.  Additionally, if the word that you play is long enough, then you will earn the displayed Common card, which is worth five Fame points.  Once two Fame card piles have run out, or the Common card pile is exhausted, the game is over and the player with the most Fame wins.

Basic setup - J and K are very expensive

The first pro that I have for Paperback is that I really enjoy the breakdown of the cards that are available for purchase.  The less expensive cards are often double letters - like "ER" (which have to be used together in your word), or common letters that are easy to play but worth a smidge more money than your basic letters.  The more expensive cards generally are much harder to play, but they give you enough money that it is worth including them in a word, even if that word will be much shorter.  And, since they are more expensive, you will have less of them in your deck.  Thus your deck will naturally have a breakdown of a few hard letters and many more common ones.  This makes the game play very smoothly, and keeps you from spending too much time trying to come up with a lot of words that include both a J and an F in them.

The second pro that I have for Paperback is that I really enjoy the double letters.  Whereas this is a very simple addition to the genre (and, for that matter, this might not be the first word game to include this), I think that it's a nice little twist.  These cards are especially good if you're strategy is to make very long words in order to claim the Common cards.  However, they also severely limit your ability to make words, as you will be amazed at how often you will want to split those letters apart - even when they are letters that you initially thought would always go well together, like "NG" and "ER."  Conversely, Fame cards give you a lot more freedom, since they are wilds - which I think is another nice touch.  They don't contribute towards the total value of your word, so in that way you are "cluttering" up your deck with them, but ultimately, your deck will need more vowels, and the Fame cards will save you.

Spelling Paperback can be very valuable

The final pro that I will mention for Paperback is that I appreciate how many variants there are.  For example, one of the variant Common cards is a spacebar - thus it lets you play two words instead of one.  There are also variants that are theme based - so whoever plays a card with that theme (such as Pirates) gets to take the theme card, which is a five Fame bonus.  But, if another person plays a themed word after you, then they will steal it.  However, my favorite variant is the co-operative (or solo) mode.  In co-op, the Fame cards are set up in a pyramid, and you can only buy the cards that are showing.  Each turn that you don't buy a Fame card, you put a marker on one of the exposed cards.  If a card ever gets 5 tokens on it, then you all lose.

Assuming that you don't have an aversion to word games, then there is only one real con that I have discovered in Paperback.  The game can really stall as people stare at their cards.  For a long time.  Each time it is their turn.  There are a couple of variants that can help with this - one is the "Bounty" variant, in which you can ask for help, and if you use someone else's help, they get a point towards a future card purchase.  There is also the Timed Bounty, in which each person has a set amount of time, and if they don't come up with a word in that time, they automatically have to offer a Bounty.  The problem I've found with these variants, though, is that you aren't really incentivized to help the other player, as it will likely help them far more than it will help you.  (Aside from making the game move along, which is a bonus in itself.)

Overall, I would give Paperback an 8.5.  I have really enjoyed my plays of it, and I can think of several more people that I plan to introduce it to.  Even if you don't like most word games, this one might be one worth checking out.

If Paperback sounds interesting, you might also check out Train of Thought and Fictionaire.

I would like to thank Tim Fowers for providing me with a review copy of Paperback.

Train of Thought Review

A game that I've been trying to find for about six months (since the designer was kind enough to point it out to me and I thought it looked intriguing) is Train of Thought.

In Train of Thought, players take turns playing as the "conductor". The conductor rolls a six-sided die and draws a card - this gives him a starting word (like "House"). From there, he draws the next card, which gives him his destination word (like "Experience"). Now, he uses the starting word along with two other words to attempt to get all of the other players to guess the destination word. If they don't get it on their first try, he can choose one of their words as his new starting word, and try again. Once you finally get them to guess the right word (this may be very quick, or may be an excruciatingly long time), you draw another card, and use your previous destination as the new start word. For each word that is correctly guessed, both the conductor and the person to guess the word get a point in the form of a card being played in front of them. You normally allow each player to be the conductor twice, and then whoever has the most cards is the winner!

The first thing that I like about Train of Thought is that it breaks my brain - and in a good way. Let's go ahead and admit this. My brain is incredibly analytical (some would say that I'm "overly analytical", but I prefer "super analytical", because then it sounds much more like a super power). And, yes, in case you didn't read between the lines, "super analytical" does equate to "software developer", which is what I currently do that actually pays "real" money (as opposed to blogging). With that, creative word games aren't necessarily something that come naturally to me. Train of Thought, specifically, challenges me to think in much different ways than games like Taboo, where I can keep babbling until someone figures out what in the world I'm saying.  I only get three words, one of which is provided for me (and normally irrelevant) - I better make them count!

The next pro is that the game can have some really neat connections to lead from one word to the next. This is, honestly, the best part of this game and what sets it apart from any other word games that I have played.  One of the games we played saw a connection from (I think) the word "weight" to the word "skin". The connection went something like "this covers weight"; which led to guesses of "clothes", "scale", and a few others. To which, the conductor (not me) cunningly replied "scale to dragon". Brilliant! Of course, scales to a dragon are their skin! When things like this occur in the game, it really helps you enjoy the game, and reminds you why you are playing it instead of any of the other multitude of choices in word party games that are available.

Unfortunately, when people choose not to play by the "spirit of the rules", the game still functions, but prevents you from experiencing the previous pro. The only real requirements of the game are that: first, you only have three words, and second, that you have to use a certain one. However, if your starting word is "Sunshine" and your destination word is "Shield", there's nothing to stop you from giving "Sunshine Captain America" as a clue. In fact, this is a pretty effective strategy, and if your goal is to win, there's no real incentive not to use it (people will catch on and disregard your first word). And I can't really point fingers here, because I have also found myself in a bind, unable to find a connection from one word to the next and thus defaulted to this strategy. I think the game would be more fun with a house rule that you are not allowed to do this - even if that requires you to all agree that you don't even keep score (those of us who are a combination of hyper-competitive and really bad at this game would probably not agree to this house rule otherwise).

The next con is in the limited number of cards included in the game. Whereas there are 200 cards, and each card has 6 different words on it, we wound up reusing some of the same words the third time that we played the game. Now, this was a combination of playing with psychologists (they are great at stringing words together to allow people to figure out what they're thinking and thus scoring lots of point - and going through lots of cards) and some similar dice rolls (we never rolled a one - in either game; we rolled a lot of five's), which led to the duplication. However, it still would have been better to have more cards available to keep the game fresh, without having to give it more down time between games (so that we can forget all the words).

Overall, I give Train of Thought an 8.5/10. I eagerly anticipated trying this game for several months, and it didn't disappoint. I think that this is a new take on word games, and I look forward to getting to play it more often. Unfortunately, it will only be once every few weeks, at the most, to make sure that we don't remember all of the words.

I would like to thank Tasty Minstrel Games for providing a copy of Train of Thought for me to try. I would also like to thank Jay Cormier (the designer of Train of Thought) for pointing the game out to me. If you're interested in following his adventure in getting games published, check out his blog Inspiration to Publication.

Fictionaire Review

Now to review the Fictionaire series of games (which consists of Classic, Naturals, Fool Science, and Tall Tales). The specific version that I played was Tall Tales, but the actual game is the same, but with different themes and questions.

In Fictionaire, each player takes turns being the "host". The host will read the question at the top of their card and then (without reading the answer) will pass the box of cards (with the answer hidden) to the next player. Each person in turn will either make up an answer to the question or will use the correct answer on the bottom of the card.  (Someone is required to use the correct answer - if nobody has used it previously, then the last person is required to use it). Once all of the potential answers have been heard, the host will pick the answer they think is correct. Whoever they pick gets a point, and then if the host is correct they will also get a point - if not, then the person who tricked them gets a second point. The game goes around until each person has been the host twice. At that point, the player with the most points wins.

Fictionaire is not an especially innovative game. In fact, it is admittedly a dressed up version of the old kid's game of Dictionary in which kids use a dictionary to do this same concept. With that said, however, the place where Fictionaire shines is in the actual questions and answers. I played the Tall Tales version, and I was completely amazed at what some of the answers were. The game is fun not only to play, but also to read the extra information that is provided at the bottom of the cards. This is a great game in which the players are learning (though not necessarily learning anything "useful") while enjoying themselves.

There are two main cons to Fictionaire. The first con is really only a con for the ultra-competitive. In Fictionaire, since the host knows who gave each answer, they can be spiteful and choose answers that they do not think are correct simply so that certain people will not get points as a strategy to winning. Hopefully, you are able to play this with a group that views it as a fun little party game and does not get caught up enough to use this strategy.

The second con with Fictionaire relates to replayability. Once you have played through all of the cards in the set, the game no longer really works, since you now know the answers. However, with 120 questions per set, you are able to play 15 games with 4 players (the minimum suggested) or about 8 games with 7 players (the maximum suggested). That is quite a bit of replayability for $10, so I think that this fact was factored into the cost, which is why I did not let it prevent me from trying this game out.

Overall, I give the Fictionaire series an 8.5/10. For what it is and the cost it comes at, I think it is worth trying out by anyone that enjoys word games. This is also a game that I think could be utilized in schools and libraries as a fun and educational activity, and I have recommended it to at least one school librarian already.