Inside the box are lots of components: a game board made up of 7 different 'room' tiles, 5 monsters, 2 team figures, 4 books, 50 word cards, 10 curse cards, 10 monster cards, 2 torches, sand timer, pencils and a pad of trapword list sheets.
You'll need 5 minutes set up and 5 minutes more before first play to press out the cardboard elements. Unlike other word guessing games, Trapwords is played with a board (made using 5 tiles from a set of 8) and as you progress it gets harder.
There's a fantasy theme and the two teams take the role of adventurers. The Word Cards have 400 standard and 400 fantasy words, and you can decide which to play by choosing which book to place the cards inside.
Both teams place a card into their book without looking and pass it to the other team. They look at the book and secretly write down 3 'Trapwords' that might be used when giving clues to the secret word. The books are passed back to one player from the other team, who now has role of 'clue-giver'.
The clue-giver attempts to get their teammates to guess the secret words by giving as many clues as they like, but your teammates can only have 5 guesses in total. If they use any of the trapwords, give up or run out of time they don't progress to the next room on the board. You have to pay attention and shout out if your opponents use a trapword, so even when it isn't your guess, you have to stay focussed.
As the game progresses you are allowed to write down more trapwords, so earning points can get a lot harder. Along your treacherous journey you will also be affected by 'curses' which change gameplay, and when you reach the final room there's a monster to defeat.
Each of the different monsters has their own challenge and in any round where neither team guessed the word and progressed to the next room, the monster moves towards them instead.
The aim of the game is to get to the last room and defeat the monster within 8 rounds. Each game is very different to the last and it's not guaranteed that either team will 'win', but you will know who has the advantage, which is enough to make my boys happy.
A game takes us around 40 minutes, so it's really quite quick to play and quite intense throughout. Trapwords is lots of fun and a brilliant way to expand anyone's vocabulary, and the very different style of gameplay really brings a new dimension and makes it more exciting. It especially suits anyone who enjoys fantasy games with a bit of imagination.
Trapwords Czech Game Edition is created by Jan Bresina, Martin Hrabalek and Michal Pozarek, and distributed by Asmodee. Suitable for 4-8 players aged around 8+ and available now priced under £20 from all good independent games stockists, including online at Amazon. Affiliate link below:
We were sent our game for review as part of the Asmodee Blogger Board Game Club. Amazon links are affiliate, which means I earn a few pence if you order through my link, but you won't pay any extra. It helps keep the website running.
This looks like great fun x
ReplyDeleteIt is. It's a really nice word game which really relies on you thinking quickly, but avoiding the obvious!
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