You can also make it harder or easier as needed, by changing the length of the face-down word in front of each player. Domineering personalities can't overshadow play the way they can in some other cooperative games. We love this game because it's truly cooperative – nobody has all the information needed at any time, and everyone is relying on others to help them out. When you run out, everyone needs to make a guess as to what word their cards spell – you don't necessarily need to have worked every single letter for this, of course! The challenge in the game is that the group only has a limited number of guesses overall. When you're certain you know what the letter that's currently up in front of you is, you can place it face down again, and bring up your next letter, keeping a note of what you think they are as you go. That's what we mean about the game not being about who's the best at anagrams or has the biggest lexicon – what really works in a given turn might be the simplest word, as long as it helps people work out what their letter is. But that's okay – because next round, a new word will be made that might cement which of those two options it is. However, a third player has the 'C' in front of them, so they're looking at a three-letter word that ends in 'RY', and will be wondering if the first letter is a 'C' or a 'T' or a 'D'. This word then becomes a clue to all the other players about what the letter that's in front of them might be – if you can see that I have spelled a word that starts 'CR' and then the third and final letter is the card in front of you that you can't see, you could safely assume that it's a 'Y'. One player will then use the letter cards they can see to spell out a word, placing down tokens that specify where in the word each letter comes (1st, 2nd, etc). The way to achieve this is that, each round, all players have one of their five cards upright and visible to the other players at the table. The ultimate aim of the game is for every player to be able to say what their word is, without ever having looked at the cards. The setup is a bit fiddly to explain (and this is true while you're teaching it to others, too – though it's extremely easy to play, there'll need to be some patience in the explanation), but the gist is: each player has five cards face down in front of them, which spell out a word. In Letter Jam, you will have a jumble of letters to make a word from, but because you're trying to come up with words that other people have to guess, there's no inherent value in longer or more obscure words. Because it's cooperative, it largely avoids one of the major pitfalls of word/spelling games, which is that some people just tend to find it easier to pick a complex word from a jumble of letters than others. This is a cooperative game of deduction and word-making.
It's all sharp elbows as you muscle your way to a good network – fiercely contested without feeling targeted or mean-spirited.Īnd it all plays in about 20 mins, with a satisfying conclusion! You'll want to just clean down the board and go again – it's such a fun sprint, as our full Ticket to Ride New York review explains. The crucial part is is how tight the board feels – there's nowhere near enough space, so it feels like a slow build up as people collect cards, until suddenly it's a mad rush to claim the routes you need before they're gone. You can only take two cards on a turn, though, and everyone can see what cards are available, so you can try to predict what other people up to (if you're paying attention). You claim routes by collecting cards: you'll need a set of all pink cards if you're planning to claim a route that's pink. The problem is that other people are also trying to make connections all over the board at the same time, and if they claim a route you need before you snap it up, you'll have to go the long way around… or maybe you're just stuffed.
You'll draw cards that show you two destinations, and if you can connect them, you'll get big points. The game is easy to learn and play: you get points by claiming routes through New York with your colour of taxi.