Review - Letter Jam
- boredgameologist
- Nov 3, 2019
- 4 min read
Finally! A break from Codenames…
Summary
Letter Jam is a cooperative guessing game which invites 2-6 players to help each other guess a mystery word they have been given. Each player begins with a secret word face down in front of them, provided to them by either the person next to them or automatically generated through the app. A standard game uses 5-letter words, and players attempt to ‘solve’ their secret word letter by letter, by process of elimination. Each round consists of a ‘clue-giver’ providing a word that may contain one of your mystery letters, aimed at getting you one step closer to figuring out what the letter is. If everyone figures out their secret word before the ‘timer’ (a flower made of tokens) runs out, the team wins! If not, the team fail miserably and must try again next time - maybe with shorter words.
Pros
⬤ Easy to learn - This game is relatively simple to learn, and took us only a couple rounds to fully understand it. The rulebook is easy enough to follow and it is the kind of game you can get started on in no time!
⬤ Challenging! - Letter Jam really tests your vocabulary and anagram-finding skills. We found ourselves scratching our heads at some of the words that the ‘cluegiver’ gave us.
⬤ Everybody gets a turn - The design of the flower token timer is clever in that it makes sure nobody is left out. There are red tokens and green tokens on the board. When you give your first clue you take a red token, and every clue after that gives you a green one. There are red tokens equal to the amount of players playing so it’s easy to notice if a player hasn’t had a chance to be cluegiver. We found this great as it is otherwise easy to accidentally pick the same person who is good at thinking of clues each time.
⬤ Perfect timing - At roughly 45 minutes per game, this is perfect for us. We are always looking for a game that is this length, as a lot of the ones we have are either really short card games, or really long complex strategy games.
⬤ Satisfying - At the end of the game, when you reveal your letters to each other it is incredibly satisfying when you are correct, but devastating when you’re wrong. A funny quirk from the rulebook is that as long as all of the letters are correct, it doesn’t matter what word the player turns that into. I gave my friend the secret word “HINGE”, but she revealed it at the end of the game as “NEIGH”! She still technically got it right...
Cons
⬤ Co-op or Comp? - This game is a co-operative game, and although I like co-operative games, it felt like it should be more competitive. When I was coming up with clues for my team I often found myself trying to convince them that my clue was the best - then suddenly deciding it wasn’t the best when I remembered that giving a clue doesn’t advance me any further in the game. I was in a conflicted mindset.
⬤ Time Pressure, or lack thereof - I wish there was more pressure on finishing our words other than a cute little flower tracker. It makes the game sometimes feel a bit slow and repetitive when everyone is just sitting there for ages trying to come up with a word. When we play it, we use an egg timer for some added pressure, and it just makes the game that much more interesting, especially when one of us can only come up with a three letter word in 30 seconds!
⬤ Repetitive - Over the many rounds that each game may take, it does start to feel a bit repetitive; Change letters, find word, spell clue, guess. And as the game was drawing to a close we just wanted to finish the words so we could see if we got them right.
⬤ Some players finish sooner than others - I was the last to finish my word, and the other players who had already finished just had to wait for a couple of rounds, trying to give me clues for my remaining letters. They found it a little boring when there was no more guessing for them.
Tips for Your First Play
The first time you play this game is a little bit fiddly, and it does take a bit of getting used to. By the second or third round everyone should fully understand the game and how it works. It is a challenging game, and is not one that can be played when there is alcohol involved. We learnt this the hard way…
The rulebook recommends starting with 5 letter words, however I found 4 letter words for the first game was much better as it is easier for everyone to quickly understand the concept of the game, before playing it again seriously.
Overall, this is a well-rounded simple game that is great for a medium-sized group who feel up to the challenge. Although the game doesn’t seem to fulfil its full potential, as you play you can add your own rules like we did with the egg timer. Each time you play this game will be fun and different, but will it replace codenames? I will leave that up to you to decide ...
See below for this rules runthrough that I found to be very helpful before playing my first game:
- Daniel
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