Hypothetically, Word Wipe & Oh My Word - All 3 of These Surprised Me, But In Which Direction?
Transcript
Hey, I'm Alex from BoardGameCo, and I am continuing my post-Gen Con coverage, and this time we are doing the party game edition. And as the title of this video says, two of these games I expected not to like, and then kind of did. And one of these games I expected to really like, and then kind of didn't. So, every one of these games surprised me, some for the better, some for the worst. Let's go ahead and start off with Ivy Studio's Hypothetically. In Ivy Studio's Hypothetically, what you're doing is you're answering questions, hypothetically, how long would something take? Hypothetically, what can you do with this? Hypothetically, uh how many oranges can you hold in your hands? You have a bunch of questions, and then you have players writing down answers on their little boards, so that players can go ahead and earn points. For example, hypothetically, keeping in mind that I'm the person asking the question, you can all play along with me. I get to look at this card, I get to choose two, well, I choose one of the two questions over here. How many words could you read in 1 hour? How fast can you throw a baseball?
I'm going to go with how many words could you read in 1 hour? So, how many words can I read in 1 hour? This is the point where you get to ask clarifying questions. The table gets to decide, well, what are the terms we're going with over here? Is it an hour non-stop? Can you take breaks? What if it's speed reading? Do you have to read it from a book, or can you turn on a speed reader? Have you ever turned on a speed reader? A speed reader is fascinating. If you ever go online, you can basically go online, type in speed reader, and then work on your reading speed by having the words flash on the screen, because our mental voice slows down our reading versus our visual comprehension is faster. So, you can read faster if words are thrown at you, and you can train your mind to process words faster. Fun little tidbits you may not have known before watching this video that I didn't plan on talking about. So, I'm going to answer no, not using a speed reader. Speed readers are a whole different conversation. I'm going to say no, we're talking about a book. If I sit down with a book, a regular novel, you know, you pick a random novel, whatever it is, uh not a kids book, just a regular adult focused random novel, how many words could I read in 1 hour? And then I'm going to answer what I think the answer is. Keeping in mind that accuracy is not the point here. You, as the table, are answering what you think I think is my answer. So, I'm going to write down Hmm, how many words can I read in 1 hour if I do that that that that? Okay, if I'm doing maybe that How many words?
An hour is a lot. An hour like this 60 seconds to a minute this means 60 seconds to a minute, right? And 60 minutes to an hour so it's 3,600 seconds to an hour. So, if I'm thinking through my thing, how many words can I read a second, then multiply that by 3,600, uh we're going to go with um and and and that's actually interesting. Okay, I'm going to I'm going to tell you more about this, okay? I'm going to answer this and then you can lock in your answer and I put down 7,200 words an hour. I think I can read two words a second very reasonably. I think I think it's a very reasonable number, maybe even three words a second. I don't I don't know. I haven't actually timed myself. Now I kind of want to do that. Honestly, that might have been a low guess. That's not the point. And you might have said, "Alex, why not put 7,000? Why not put 7,500?" Because to a certain extent, I do want to game the system. If anyone else guesses the exact same thing as me, then I will get three points and they'll get three points. Otherwise, whoever's closest gets one point. So, if I go through that, I could have adjusted the 7,000, but I'm not going to because I think that other people might end up doing the same math as I did and coming up with two or three words a second and just multiplying it out. That's the basic idea of the game.
Play until a determined number of points, play until you don't want to, keep track of points if you do, don't bother if you don't. This is a party game. Play it how you want it. The general idea is you are answering questions hypothetically. I I I think this kind of game feels like a very mass market kind of game. It doesn't feel like a typical gamer's game. Uh nothing about this game should be as fun as it is and yet it is surprisingly fun. With caveats and asterisks and all that. But this is a game that I've enjoyed a lot to the point that I've both played this as an actual game, like the way you're intended. I've also started using this like in the car randomly. Like I I genuinely I've had this game for like a week and a half or whatever it's been. I've already used this like, "Oh, we're going on a car ride with the kids? Okay, let's all play Hypothetically." You figure out a question to ask, okay? You You know, you ask the question and I'll answer and we'll all just come up with our answer and we'll just say it. You don't even need the boards. Granted, it's better with the boards for the reveal and all that and players not tailing their answers, but I've actually incorporated this as a fun little road trip game or standing in line for the roller coaster kind of game or wherever you are, which is kind of impressive for a game I learned a week and a half ago. Overall, a lot of fun, really enjoyed this one. I think it's great. What's the caveat? The asterisk is that ultimately, because this game is reliant on single questions and group dynamics, it is the kind of game that becomes less interesting the more you play it. If you've answered the same question, like once I've answered all these questions, even with another group, that question is just less interesting. Part of the fun is seeing how is Bob going to answer the question?
But that question doesn't become more fun if Sarah's answering instead. I've done that question. I've thought it through, so it is a very standard party game in the sense that it's a single lane focus questions as opposed to a combination of things that keeps the game forever interesting as you might find in games like Monikers, So Clover, games that have more dynamics as opposed to a single answer at a single point in time. So I both like it more than I thought I did than I thought I would, as well as am understanding that it's definitely not a forever game. It's a play until I no longer find a fun game. I'm going to give it a 3.5 out of 5. More impressed than I thought I would be. From there, let's go ahead and dive into Word Wipe. Word Wipe is designed by Peter Hayward, put out by AEG. This is a game I love how they have two designers' names on the box. And if you flip the box, like that's very clever. That's a clever little aspect of how they did that. But anyways, designed by Peter Hayward and Matt I can't I'm sorry, Matt. This is a B A H N T G E. I don't I don't I don't know, Matt. Designed by Peter or Matt. And honestly, I'm even assuming it's designed by Peter or Matt.
Maybe it's designed by Peter and illustrated by Matt, but the way they have the names on the box, I don't think so. The generality of the game is you're going to put a bunch of core words. I don't even know where they are. Do I have my core words readily accessible? Yeah, here they go. We're going to have our thing, we're going to have our place, and you're going to have your being, okay? Person, place, and thing. They just changed person to being, so like horses now are beings. Then you're going to go ahead and put a bunch of words around the table. So you're going to find these words. Let me grab a bunch of words. You're going to put these around the table depending on the player count. I'm just going to throw a bunch out. You have a different number of words around the table depending on the player count. And then players have a 5 minutes. You set a timer for 5 minutes. This timer is used for the turns you take, and then you have the your your your deck of clue cards. So, I'm going to grab a clue card. I have this, okay? Now, I have a clue card. I'm going to try to get you, the viewer, to guess what I'm going for. You can say any number of things. You're You're not limited to a single guess. So, as you're watching this, don't type everything up, but just think as many things as you want. I'm going to go ahead, and I'm going to say um we're going to take this uh we're going to take um actually, no, these are terrible. These are terrible.
These are terrible. I'm going to go ahead and discard this card. So, discarding indoor, but that means that I do have to add a new card to the table. Cuz the only thing that's indoor is like prison, and I don't think it's very helpful. So, now I have a new card. Um and this one is uh we're going to go ahead, and I'm going to grab You're never going to think of this. You're never going to You're never going to think of this. I'm going to discard ignite, okay? Ignite could have gone with power and police and prison and who knows what, but no one's ever going to think of that. So, we're going to add a new card to the table. Every time you discard a card, you have to add a card to the table. You're trying to wipe all these words. That's the challenge you're going for. Now, I have a new card over here. Am I going to figure this out? But I don't I don't I don't I don't Okay, I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop. By the way, I don't like this game. But uh basically, now I have stuffed, okay? I don't think you're going to get stuffed. The general idea is you find a word somewhere, okay? And let's say sweet. Is that No, it's terrible. It's terrible. Tall, teeny, tiny, throw. Okay, I'm going to stop doing this. The general idea is you have a clue, and you're trying to figure out how to associate the clue you have with any number of different words on the table. So, going back to the indoor as an example, had I tried doing, you know, prison and a power, I don't know. I don't know. A plumber, cuz plumbers do things indoors. So, had I tried doing this, you would be able to I I'd put these words together, then we put up the timer, and you have 30 seconds to figure out word what I'm going for.
You can say anything. I'm allowed to point at these and say, "Oh, it's a thing, a place, a being." Or if you start saying any of these words, I can point more. I can illustrate more, but I can't say anything. So, I kind of say they say, "Oh, no, you're You You said that word. That's similar to that word." Or I can I can try to guide you in the right direction without actually saying the word. You're trying to guess the card that I gave you from these cards over here. I I don't like this game. I don't I don't know I don't know if I'm bad at it. I don't understand if it's not working for our group. I don't know, but it's it is I find the correlation The first complaint I'm going to give is we have person, place, and thing as helpful things that you can point to as the clue giver. You can point to those things, amazing. But you can also you Why don't they have things like verb or concept? Like if they had verb or concept in here, that would already be a million times better. Cuz at the very least we can stop thinking of person, place, and thing, or whatever being, uh we can go straight to verb or concept. guide you so many directions. Like cold is not a person, place, or thing. It's also not a verb, it's a concept. That would That would help players so much in this game.
But even with that, I find it to be so challenging to actually group up. The idea is you try to get a bunch of words. So if I group these four, you wipe those four from the table. Now you have these off the table. The idea that you can actually win at this game in 5 minutes, I don't understand. I would love to know, like hey, here's the deal. If I'm doing this wrong, if someone's uh if someone is playing this game and it's working for you, please let me know, because I don't understand. I don't know. I I I feel like I'm either miss I'm missing something. It's not working. It's not working for me. That's what it comes down to. That's my review of Word Wipe. I love the concept, it doesn't work in practice, at least for me. I was very excited for this one. I was looking forward to this one. I love the idea of word association games. I really enjoy trying to combine games like So Clover, Decrypto, games like Things and Rings, there's like uh games like um what's it called? Um What's the other one? Alibis. There's so many games out there that have word association puzzles. Codenames. Like there's so many. And they're all so amazing in different ways. I was really excited for Word Wipe, and unfortunately this one straight up did not work for me. I'm giving it a 1.5 out of five. I love the concept, I don't love anything else about the game, and I wonder if it's somehow I don't know. Again, it's not just me. I played this game with other people. No one No one felt like they had a handle on making this actually work in theory.
Like Like it can be done. It just feels like most of the time you're cycling and then you have to clear the table. So, because you have to clear the table, you're kind of cycling until you find a perfect combination of things, which just isn't a satisfying experience for me. Real-time word association that doesn't actually seem like it's easy to associate things does not work for me. A 1.5 out of 5, I I I not for me. And then we have Oh My Word, which by now means you know that I like this game because of the fact that I said two of these games surprised me. I hate the box. The box is terrible. This falls open all the time. That happens when I don't want it to happen. I wanted it to happen this time, so I planned for it, but it happens on both sides. I need to tape I need to tape one of these sides of the boxes uh shut. Basically, the idea of this game is it's What's That Game? The Topple. It's Topple, but in reverse. So, we're going to go ahead and create a pile of uh words over here. I'll zoom out a little bit so you can uh see it a little better, and then we're going to just grab things from the bag. You're going to go ahead and grab a tile from the bag. You're going to start the timer.
You grab a tile from the bag. I got a W. I think it's a W. Uh color, white. Okay, I put white down. So, it has to go to the next person. They grab. They got a T. We got a fast food. Uh no, uh we got a tortilla. Tortilla's great. That's a fast food, I assume, probably. Uh then we have an I. We have a feeling. Uh a feeling is illness. Insecure. Insecure is a feeling. Great. Okay. Then we have R. A series. Um a crime. A crime. I have a crime. I don't want to say it. I got Oh, no. Gone. Okay, cool. By the way, I had a crime. I just don't want to say it, so I'm not going to. Anyways, point is I lost this. I lost. You keep passing the bag to another player. Okay, that's what you do. You take a tile, you put it down. When you put it down, you cover it up. No one else can do a feeling. Feeling is now covered. These, by the way, are double-sided to give you more variability. I do wish there were even more boards, honestly. Like even two more boards and always combining four would give you so much more variability.
Point is, as the game continues, these spots get more and more covered up. And whenever you are left holding the bag, where's my stack of tokens? Did I Is it Did it fall? I think my bag fell when I was grabbing this. Anyways, as you are left holding this when the timer goes off, you get a negative point token, which is a variable number of negative points. Uh there's also tiles that let you reverse things, so you pass the bag to the person who handed it to you. All of that stuff, I don't love any of it. I don't love the scoring, I don't love the uh negative randomness of the point tokens, I don't love the reverse hand bag, but the overall panic mode of trying to desperately find a tile and put it down, I love that. I almost wish there was a different game system where it's more about, "Okay, you get a 60-second timer and you put it down and try to figure out like how much you get done." And then you just go back and forth getting points that way. I think that would be a better game from a pure uh gamification standpoint. But ultimately, I have a ton of fun playing this. If you've played Tapple, Tapple is a very fun game. Tapple's basically you have a concept and then you have to type in different letters. This reverses it.
You get the letter and then you have to match different concepts until you run out of time or you run out of negative point tokens. Uh despite all my criticisms of how the actual scoring and structure are, which I don't like, and I almost debate how scoring it, I almost want there to be like two different bags of two different colors, so you have a team-based game and you have the red tokens and the blue tokens, you put them out. I think there could be a better game here. But the actual concept is a ton of fun. I'm giving this a four out of five. Surprisingly fun. If the goal is to enjoy yourself, feel challenged, feel under the pressure of time while trying to uh well, have a good time, which is the main point of games, I think this delivers in a big way. Uh my main criticism is I think that it could be better than it actually is, although that's also of course obviously to my taste. So, a four out of five on Ward Life. Much more fun than I thought it would. Oh, this box. I hate this box. No, I hate. I hate the box. Uh I'm going to have to go ahead and tape that shut and then go ahead and find my point point tokens, which fell on the floor as I was gathering this off the shelf. That is Oh my word. Uh anyways, quick recap over here. We have Ward Life. Sadly, did not work for me. A 1.5 out of five.
Hypothetically, much more fun than I thought it would be. Still limited in the longevity of the games it can provide. A 3.5 out of five. And then we have Oh My Word from Cosmos. A terrible box. A game system that I think could be better, but ultimately a really fun time. A four out of five. That is basically my review over here of all these three games. I remind you this channel is sponsored by Allplay. If you go to allplay.com, you can find a variety of great games including, I mentioned it already, but like games like Things in Rings, Alibi's. There's so many great games that are there for word association and that party feeling. Highly recommend checking out Things in Rings and you can get a bunch of games from other partner publishers while you're there as well. In any case, until next time, I'm Alex Radcliffe from Board Game Co. I hope you found this review helpful and as always, I hope you have a good one.