Designed by: Gil Hova
Wordsy is – you guessed it – a word game, and one of the simplest to learn. Two rows of four cards are laid out on the table, with a letter (always consonants) on each. Players then all rack their brains for a word that contains as many of those letters as possible, ideally from the left-hand side of each row – letters score increasingly less the further along the row you go. So, for instance, with two rows of:
P C T L
S V R X
P and S are worth five points each, whereas L and X are only worth two apiece. I might be very pleased with my word CROPS (17 points) only to find Joe has come up with EXPECTORATES (22 points). But as well as the linguistic challenge there’s also a time challenge – whoever writes down their word first flips a timer and everyone else now has a mere 30 seconds to think of (and write!) their own word down. If you flipped the timer and nobody scored more than you, you get a bonus. If somebody did score more than you, they get a bonus instead, and you are barred from flipping for the next round!
At the end of each round the four right-hand letters are removed and the four left-hand letters move along the row, making room for new letters. And after seven rounds, the most points wins. But bear in mind you discount your lowest two scores, so it’s possible to come back from a bad round or two!
I'll take Boggle over Scrabble any day, and Wordsy has Boggle's sense of racing against the clock. In this case, the clock is set by the other players, once someone flips the timer and locks in their word - triggering the frantic rush to dredge up a longer word in the remaining 30 seconds. The scoring is clever, and the fact that you're only judged on your five highest scores is a nice leveller too. If I don't fancy the ticking clock I'll maybe go for Movable Type or Paperback, but Wordsy's a great option for larger groups with less time.
None - players can't interfere with each other's words or scores, so the only potential pressure is from that timer.
None.
Thinking of words. Wordsy's rules are super-light, but it's probably not a game that will suit children because the scoring is set up to reward long words.
It's light, brief, but comes with a challenge that always changes due to the random fall of the cards.
1-6
Players
10+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
Both Joe and I like word games so it'd have to be a real clunker to miss with us, and fortunately Wordsy isn't that. A fast-paced game that rewards quick thinkers, Wordsy's fun is the tightrope walk between thinking of the longest word you possibly can, and thinking of any word at all as the seconds tick away and you begin to panic... a hit with us to go with other favourites like Movable Type and Letter Tycoon with the potential advantage over both of playing at a rapid rate.