Word Slam

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Word Slam
Game data
author Inka and Markus Brand
graphic Fiore GmbH
publishing company Cosmos games
Publishing year 2016
Art Card game, quiz game
Teammates 3 to X
Duration about 45 minutes
Age from 12 years

Awards

Word Slam is a card and communication game by German game designers Inka and Markus Brand , which was published by Kosmos Spiele in 2016 . In 2017, the game was included in the jury's list of recommendations for the game of the year and was awarded the game prize of the highly talented club Mensa in Deutschland eV (MinD).

Style of play

In Word Slam , the aim of the team is to guess various terms by laying out descriptive cards. In addition to the instructions, the game material consists of:

  • 200 guessing cards each with 6 terms in four colors
  • 210 explanation cards, 105 each for the two teams
  • four card banks for storage
  • a six-sided die
  • an hourglass

Game preparation

At the beginning of the game, the players split into two teams of the same size as possible. In each team, one player becomes the explainer and each team receives a set of 105 explanation cards and the two corresponding card banks. The card banks are placed in the middle of the table so that the sloping card shelf faces the respective team, and dice and hourglass are provided. Then the explainer sorts the explanation cards by color and symbol in front of the card bank.

Game for four or more players

Depending on the number of players and the target playing time, different numbers of rounds are played, usually 21 to 25. The explainer of the first team rolls the dice and receives the hourglass, the explainer of the second team draws the first card from the guess pile. He looks at the term next to the number rolled, then gives the card to the explainer of the other team. If the term is unknown to an explainer, one of the explainers can choose another term on the card.

Then the card is placed face down next to the guessing pile and with the command WORD and the answer SLAM , both explainers begin to describe the term for their team with the explanation cards. To do this, they choose appropriate terms from the stacks of explanatory cards and place them on their card bank, they are not allowed to speak or make any other noises and they are not allowed to cover parts of the cards in order to receive letter sequences. Cards on the bank can be rearranged and removed again as desired by the explainer, particularly important cards can be displayed with a finger pointing. In the case of two-part words, the first bank can also be used for the first word part and the second for the second word part. Meanwhile, the teams are allowed to guess which term is meant. The player with the hourglass can decide at any time to use the hourglass and turn it around, after which both teams only have as long as the clock is running.

The game ends as soon as a player has guessed the correct term. The successful team receives the advice card, after which the next round begins. The teams change their narrators in a clockwise direction and the roles of the teams at the start of the game are swapped. The game ends when the last guess card has been guessed, the winner is the team with the most guessed terms and, in the event of a tie, a decision card is played.

Game for three players

The three-player game is the same as the multi-player game, except that only one set of explanation cards is used. One of the players is the explainer and the other two players have to guess the terms. Before the explainer starts, he always turns the hourglass over and then begins with the explanations. If a player guesses the term before the time runs out, he and the explainer each receive a guess card. If the term is not guessed within the time, neither player receives the card. After the round, the role of the explainer changes clockwise.

Variants and levels of difficulty

In the game instructions several variants are mentioned to make the game a little easier or more difficult:

  • Without a name: On each card there is a proper name of a real or fictional character, a book title, a film title or the like - these names can be left out by arrangement
  • Difficulty levels: The advice cards have different backs that indicate the difficulty of the terms. This ranges from beginner (green) to simple (yellow), experienced (red) to expert (black). Depending on the composition of the teams, the guess piles can be put together from cards of different difficulty levels. In mixed groups, the simpler cards can be used for younger and inexperienced players and the harder cards for adults and experienced players; two piles can be formed for this.

Expenses and reception

The game Word Slam was developed by the German game authors Inka and Markus Brand and launched as a German version at Kosmos Spiele for the International Game Days 2016 in Essen (SPIEL '16). In 2017, the game was also published in English by the same publisher.

In 2017 the game was included in the jury's list of recommendations for the game of the year , the jury describes the game as follows:

For example, “water” and “white” could describe a simple term like “ milk ”. But there are also categories with more demanding tasks. In order to get the other players on the trail of “ lactose intolerance ”, the explainer need creativity when choosing the word cards. The counselors should be able to combine well and pay attention to the attempted solutions of the opposing team, because these often contain valuable information. "

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In the games database BoardGameGeek , Word Slam is rated with an average rating of 7.0 (out of 10) and the game is largely positive in numerous other reviews. In a review by Udo Bartsch in the spielbox , the author particularly emphasizes the difficulty of explaining complex terms with 105 terms and rates the game with 8 out of 10 possible points.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Rules for Word Slam at Kosmos Spiele
  2. ↑ Versions of Word Slam in the BoardGameGeek database; accessed on May 14, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b Word Slam on the website of the Spiel des Jahres eV ; Retrieved June 5, 2017.
  4. ↑ Ratings for Word Slam in the BoardGameGeek database; accessed on May 14, 2017.
  5. ↑ Udo Bartsch: Do not speak quickly with me. spielbox 7, 2016; Pp. 6-7.

Web links