If you only needed to add a few vowels, could you tell me what this word could be: CTZN? How about RZR? If you knew those and could answer quickly, you may enjoy this fast-paced word challenge! Think you have what it takes to out vowl your friends? Let’s find out together!

What Is It?

A real-time word game where players will individually, alongside a partner, of versus one player (depending on a die roll) be trying to solve a certain number of cards by figuring out the words with all the vowels missing. You’ll get more difficult cards the higher you go on the score track. When you succeed, you can either gain 2 points, or gain 1 point and move your own, and one other players’, victory token down a spot. When your scoring token meets or passes your victory token, you win!

Who Is It For?

  • 3 to 5 players – There is a 2 player variant, but I don’t personally recommend it. More on that later.
  • Ages 14+
  • Fans of speed / real-time games
  • Fans of word games
  • Players with good visual recognition; able to fill in words mentally, no pen and paper

Variants

2 Player Variant – This variant turns “partner-mode” into “selection mode. Your opponent will draw 3 more green cards than what you need to solve, and select which 3 to discard, leaving you with, most likely, the ones they think you are less likely to solve. I didn’t feel like the game worked very well at 2. The partner play was much more interesting, and since each turn’s mode is determined by a die roll, it can mean you have to do this a lot, which can add unnecessary time to the game since they are choosing which cards you get, instead of you just drawing them. It’s okay if you really want to play at 2 players, but I’d say just wait until you have the appropriate amount of players instead.

PROS

  • Quality – Nice components
  • Aesthetics – Nice color scheme / design; I love the cute lil owls
  • Unique concept for a word game
  • Lots of cards make for good variety
  • Rules – Simple rule set, well-written, easy to learn from
  • Partner mode is a cool way to try and get 2 players to catch up on a leader

CONS

  • Player Count – Box says 2 – 5, but rules say 3 – 5 with 2 player variant. The 2 player variant definitely felt like an afterthought, and I wish the box reflected the player count more accurately
  • Time – I felt it was a little long for what it was
  • Head-to-Head mode can be a bit overwhelming as players are yelling out solutions to different cards at the same time. I thought it would have been smoother to be a race to solve the same cards, first one to solve gets the card, most solved cards gets the point(s)
  • Play Mode being random based on a die roll was kind of annoying. I thought choosing a single game mode at the start and doing it every turn would have been smoother

Final Thoughts

I honestly wanted to like this game more than I did, because I really like word games, and I like more speed/real-time games than not. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me. I thought the randomness of the die roll for card counts and game mode felt unnecessary, and slowed the game a bit.

Also, I mostly play games at 2-players, so I was disappointed by the 2-player game being a variant, when the box led me to believe that wasn’t the case. The game worked, but it definitely felt like it wasn’t intended to be played at just 2.

The game was definitely more challenging than I expected, but that’s, of course, all going to be up to personal interpretation. I did think the concept of it was really cool though, and definitely unique. It was a little puzzley trying to figure out which vowels could fit with the given consonants to make words. I was just too easily overwhelmed by trying to figure out the words, and by another player shouting answers during the head-to-head segments. If you don’t have that same issue, and you like fast-paced word games, you may still enjoy this one!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 4/10
Designer – Cameron Art
Artists – Jason Boles, Tristam Rossin
Publisher – BGB Publishing
MSRP – $29.00
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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