My first two posts on this blog were on tile-laying games (you can check out my review for Karuba here and my review for Kingdomino here). This next one, though, is my first foray into party games on this site. Party games are great to pick up when you're looking for a casual game, particularly with a large group of friends. And this is a great one to choose.
The cover of Just One, sporting the 2019 Spiel des Jahres (the German game of the year) badge.
Just one is a cooperative game which resembles the very popular Codenames in that you are asked to write one-word clues about a word for another player – only that here, all players are writing a clue for a single guesser. If any of those clues match, then the matching clues are removed, leaving the guessing player with only the remaining clues to determine what their word could be.
Here's an example of two clues. Both of these players were giving clues for #4, "cheese". The player they were clueing in would have one chance at guessing. Luckily, the clues didn't match, so the guesser has both clues available to them.
As you can see, the rules are very simple, and yet quite fiendish. Choosing the most obvious clue, although it would really boost the guesser's chances at getting their word right, would likely create a match between that clue and another player's. But go too obscure, and the guesser might not be able to guess it. All the players work as a team to successfully guess all of the words dealt them, or to get as many as they can. The team gets scored according to how close to perfect their performance was.
The fact that all clues are used for one player, and that a match means both clues are eliminated, makes this game very satisfying. In codenames, your goal is to get your guesser/s to guess one or more words in a grid without guessing the words belonging to the opposing team, which is a similar "clue-limiting" mechanic. But this one is very interesting because it makes your brain think in curious ways. You might be giving a clue for "root" and think: "Tree would be very helpful here". But then you might realize: "Wait, I think everyone else is going to say tree. Maybe I'll try beer, as in root beer?"
The back of the box, with another example of clues given for a word.
This is a great game for frequent board game players and newcomers to the hobby alike, and really makes you think in interesting ways. I swear that the fact that all three games won game of the year in Germany is a coincidence, and totally unplanned, but hopefully it gives you another, outside source on their quality! Definitely check this one out. You can do so on Board Game Arena at this link. At this writing, the implementation on their website is still in what they call the "Beta" phase, which means it hasn't gotten its finishing touches and been approved by the site to join the main library of games, but it's really well put together and lots of fun.
I hope this review was useful. If you're liking these, please do let your friends know. And tell me in the comments below this post what kinds of games you would like to see! Here is a little list of categories to get you started, but please do tell me any game categories or specific games you'd like to see on the blog:
More party games
More tile-laying games
Board games with boards (Catan, Wingspan, etc.)
Card games
Dice games
Classic games, like go, chess, or mancala (I've got a post on games like these coming up)
Word games
Dexterity games (games where you balance or throw things)
Thanks all and happy board gaming!
Comments