Designed by: Gérald Cattiaux
Master Word is a co-operative quiz game where the players try to work out a hidden word.
One player is the guide and knows what the word is. The others are the seekers and must figure it out, twenty-questions style, knowing only the theme (for instance: animals) but without specifically naming it until they choose to make a guess.
It works like this: each seeker has six clue cards with which to narrow down what the secret word is. In our animal example, the players might write that it’s smaller than a cat, feathered, brown, and furry (and if you’re playing the game’s official timing rules, then the seekers only have 90 seconds to co-ordinate and submit their clues). The guide then tells the seekers how many (if any!) of these are right by placing tokens next to the row of cards, but they can’t say which of the clues are actually correct. So if the secret word was robin, these clues would get three tokens. If it was gorilla, they’d only get one.
A single round then can simply add to the sense of puzzlement. But as the seekers progress through further rounds, they’re able to cross-reference earlier clues and – hopefully – get a firmer idea of what the answer is. If they’re confident enough, they also have some (dark-bordered) answer cards with which to try and win the game (if you guess the answer on a non-answer card you lose!)
None
None - everyone's involved at all times
Very low on the rules, but some decent smouldering over figuring out what's what with the Guide's feedback
How much do you like quizzes? Although clearly a game, with win-or-lose objectives, Master Word leans very much in that direction.
3-6
Players
10+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
It's a canny game that requires the players not just to be shrewd with their workings-out, but with their clues as well, economising so you're always learning new information and uncovering nuances in what the answer might be. We enjoyed it but found it lacked the immediacy and laughs of something like Just One, despite taking less time to finish. But it's still an absorbing challenge, and perhaps preferable to those who prefer the deduction aspect over the comparative silliness of other games.