Boardgame review: Last Word

Okay this one goes out to all the nerds out there. It's cheap, its easy, it's fun .. heck it's a lot like dating me would be.



We like this new board game we recently acquired. Its name is "Last Word" and last night on family night we took our first crack at it. You can read all about it on Buffalogames.com where they list some of their other products. But here is our personal family review.







Here's the basics of how it works. You have a small board to move your pieces around. No dice though. Very simple gameplay. Basically if you win a round you get to move a space forward.


So here is how a round works.

• Each person is given a "subject" card in their hand which they show to no one else.
• A "letter" card is turned up and placed on the board.
• Any player can begin the round by thinking of a word, beginning with that letter, and which falls within the subject card they hold.
• If the player wants to go for it, that player plays their subject card so others can see it, reads it to the group and announces the first word.
• They also start a timer, which is randomized.
• The start of the timer begins the official round.
• Other players then compete by blurting out other words that begin with that letter and are within the subject played.
• When the timer sounds, which remember is at random intervals, the last player to have a correct answer has "the last word" and wins that round.
• The winner moves forward a single space.
• Rinse.
• Repeat.

There are other cool things built into the game. There is a "jump start" rule which means, if you're like me, and enjoy seeing other people struggle for a word ... well this rule is for you. :)

You can use a jump start like this.

• Player A (me) sees player B and C are having trouble finding a word for their subject. So I ... er, player A ... call out "jump start" and hit the timer.
• This causes Players B and C to have to come up with words for "their" subject cards. They don't have to show them to anybody. They just have to start individually coming up with words.
• Player A has no further responsibilities here whatsoever other than to see people sweat.
• If they fail and neither of them come up with any words because the presssure crushed their fragile nerves ... ahem ... then Player A gets to move 2 spaces. (This is what I like, the potential of huge payoff with zero effort)
• And if they succeed, whichever of the two of them has the "last word" gets to move a single space.

Conclusion:
This is a fun, fun game which we really liked a lot. We like games that are simple to play but still get the emotions/mind involved or aka .. fun. This one fit the bill nicely.

Additionally or lastly and finally, it only took about 2omins or so to play a round and we really took it slow since we were reading rules while we played.

Family night: 12/26/2008

Heather's night to pick

Menu:
Pizza hut pizza: thin-crust cheese lovers with bacon and beef. Also a 1-topping pepperoni for the kiddo (okay, we really really like our pizza ok)? Recipes are weclome .. cough *Jenn* cough
Breadsticks

Games:
2 new games we've not played until tonight. Virgin game night. Shush, no jokes.
- Battleship: Torpedo attack
- Last Word

(We'll post reviews of these later ...)

... and maybe a game or two we already love.

- Sorry
- Break the Safe (awesome game that will get its own review later)

Family night

Several years ago I had the bug to start a "family tradition" that we could pass on to any kids we have/may have so they'd have a neat thing to look back on later in their lives. And so was born family night at Castle Horton.

Now I'm the creative sort, to be sure, but on this I was stumped on where to begin. So as usual I went running to friends for advice since we never did anything like this growing up (asking family kinda wasn't an option).

We ended up taking the advice of a friend about having the same meal on family nights, his dad used to make steaks every Saturday night. I thought that was a cool idea. We went with making it a pizza night, making that the only night we'll, generally speaking, eat pizza.

The other most recent twist is that we each take turns picking "what's for family night". That keeps things fair.

So a typical family night goes like this:

Menu
Pizza ... either pizza hut or home-made ( which is becoming our favorite), or we doctor up some frozens.

Entertainment
On Josh's night: it's usually movies or video games for the whole family. Wii bowling is very fun!
On Heather's night: we generally get in some good board games or cards, etc.
On my nights: I've recently changed mine to always be a double feature movie, with me getting everything the "fam" needs so they don't have to get up.

Fridays are our family nights and we really look forward to them!

So on this blog, we'll be talking about our family nights, what we did, what we watched, reviewing games, reviewing movies, etc.

Hope you like it!