The world of wizards and dark academia revolves around words. It’s a well-known fact established in Fantasy of all kinds. Spells and rituals involve some kind of incantation. Magical battles see spellcasters shouting words at each other that manifest into special attacks. If you can write it down correctly and then say it, it becomes a powerful weapon.
Unstable Games’ latest game, If Words Could Kill, captures all of this in a fast-paced card game centered on high-scoring words. Eliminate the other players with words that score higher than theirs and declare absolute language domination.
The game, which accommodates 2-5 players, is simple but fun. Players are given 45 seconds (set by an hourglass timer that comes in the game box) to create words that consist of three letters or more to set a score. To do so, you use spell cards that contain a single letter each with varying numerical values. Once a word is offered, the score is set on a dial and the hourglass is placed in front of the player that is on the receiving end of the word attack. That player must create a word that results in a higher score or suffer the consequences.
Failure to produce a higher-scoring word means the player loses a shield card. These act as hit points, and each player has three. Losing all three leads to elimination. But shield cards offer buffs that can help in subsequent turns, including letters with higher score values. The last player holding at least one shield wins.
The game comes with 100 spell cards, 25 shield cards, 5 murder cards (which give players a “last stand” kind of opportunity before being eliminated), a score tracker, and the hourglass timer. It is very easy to set up and then pack up. Speed is the name of the game here, favoring an aggressive playstyle that encourages on-your-toes thinking to outwit fellow rivals.
In a sense, If Words Could Kill can be explained as a higher-stakes Scrabble for fast-thinking wordsmiths. The 45-second turns bear down on players and inject a sense of urgency that keeps play sessions lively. That said, I found that the timer could sometimes stop the flow of the game a bit. I removed it from play for one match and it didn’t seem to disrupt the gameplay loop in any remarkable sense. It just slowed the pace down somewhat. What’s important is that it works well with or without the timer.
What makes this party game clever is that everyone can use the letters that were cast for the attacking word by the player that started it off. Anything you put forth has the potential to backfire if your target uses those same letters for a longer word with a tougher score to beat. This gets further complicated by the presence of a wild card, which is a spell card with a question mark on it that can be any letter the player wants it to be. Wild cards don’t add to the score, though.
Unstable Games has produced yet another game with wide expansion potential. As it stands, the game can be a tad too simple, but players that want to further complicate it can. In theory, they can just set agreed-upon rules or word choices to make it more difficult or more competitive. But that’s what expansions are for.
Add extra card types to build on the gameplay— like counter cards, steals, full syllables spells, etc.—and then present them as themed extensions with their own unique designs and suddenly you have a meatier experience on your hands. This speaks to game’s adaptability. Anyone that wants to tinker with the rules can. This level of flexibility is what makes rich expansions possible. Simplicity is a virtue here, not a hindrance.
Word games hold a special place in the history of play. From Scrabble to Wordle, it’s clear that people love putting letters together to win at words. If Words Could Kill enters this gaming tradition with a sense of excitement and competition that can proudly stand with the best of them. Unlike other experiences of its kind, though, quick thinking reigns supreme here. It’ll put your vocabulary to the test. But being able to best a group of friends with words provides a sense of gratification that is second to none.
