Over the past couple months, a bunch of games and gaming materials have been piling up on my desk as I was busy doing Convention Coordination for CoolMiniOrNot. Now that the CoolMiniOrNot Expo is passed (and it was a great time. You should all come out next year), I’ve had some time to get back into the routine of doing reviews. The next in our lineup of TGN Reviews is the party game Wordner.
Wordner is a party game that is along the lines of Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity. Players are given a prompt and must come up with what they feel is the best answer. The Judge then decides who wins and that player receives a point.
Wordner comes in its own handy traveling case. The lunchbox-sized container easily carries all the components for the game and locks, helping to make sure none of the cards, the Wilbur Clownfish, or the pens get lost (lord knows pens have a way of up and disappearing, especially around this office, anyway).
Looking inside, we see that there are two stacks of cards, the blue prompt cards and the orange starter cards. There’s over a hundred cards in each deck, so the chances of repeating cards across multiple sessions, even if they’re pretty long games, is rather low. Also in the case we have a pad of paper and a stack of the aforementioned pens. The fact that the pen caps match the color scheme for the game I felt was a nice touch. There’s also the rulebook inside, though with only 3 steps in gameplay, it’s more like a rules pamphlet. Finally there’s the squishable foam Wilbur D. Clownfish. He’s the mascot for the company as well as the indicator of who is the judge for the round (the judge gets to hold Wilbur).
As I mentioned, there’s only 3 steps to a round of Wordner. First, the judge picks the top card off of both the Prompt and Starter piles and reads them out loud. The other people playing then must use the Starter words to answer the Prompt as best they see fit. They must use at least one Starter word, though they can make it plural or as part of another word (like you can use the word Sew and turn it into Sewer). These replies are the “wordners” of the game’s name. The players write down their wordners and pass them to the judge who then reads them aloud. The Judge picks the winner of the round and that player is handed the blue Starter card. The first player to get to 5 cards is the winner.
Playing Wordner, like any good party game, is about the company you keep. The game works best when you’ve got a group of old friends together in high spirits who love to laugh and joke with one-another. So maybe not a good game for when your tax accountant is visiting, but when some good friends from out of town are over, break out the game and you’ll have some big laughs and good times.