Nobjects

• Designer: Ludovic Gimet
• Publisher: Pegasus Spiele
• Players: 3-6
• Age: 8+
• Time: 15-20 minutes
• Times played: 2, with review copy provided by Pegasus Spiele

Nobjects is a small format party game from Pegasus Spiele, released in 2019.  For now, Pegasus appears to be distributing their own games here in the US – and while it’s nice that it keeps everything in house, I sometimes feel that these games slip through the cracks a bit as Pegasus is still in the process of ramping up their footprint here.  I was sent a box of their current releases in advance of GenCon, and I do believe that they will have a booth there to show off this and their other new games.

In Nobjects, players vie to be the first to score six points.  There is a deck of 120 concept cards provided, split up into three levels of difficulty – easy/green, medium/yellow, challenging/red.  Each of these cards has 6 words listed on the back of it, and not surprisingly, the game comes with a d6 as well. The game is recommended to be played with a 60 second timer, but this is not provided, so you might need a phone nearby or steal a sandtimer for another game.

On a player’s turn, he will be responsible for drawing.  He draws a card; but the deck from which he draws is dependent on his current score.  If he has 0-1 points, he takes an easy card. From 2-4 points, he takes a medium card.  If he has 5 points, he must draw a challenging card. The die is rolled, and the player must now draw the corresponding word from the back of the card.

But, wait, I haven’t said anything about pen and paper yet.  Well, that’s because you don’t need it. The player simply uses his finger and traces out his picture with his finger on the table.  There are a set of typical restrictions – no talking is aloud nor is any pantomimes. You may not trace out any numbers or letters. The other players are free to make guesses at what is being drawn.  There is no penalty for an incorrect guess. If a correct answer is given before the timer runs out, both the drawing player and the correct guesser will score a point. The active player keeps the card he used this round, and the correctly answering player takes a challenging card from the deck to record his point.

Then, check to see if the game ends – if one or more players has 6 points, they win.  Otherwise, the next player around the table becomes the active player and the game continues.

Nobjects is a nice little party filler game.  While the entire game doesn’t take very long, it also could find a role around here as a filler to be pulled out while waiting for another table to finish up so that the gamers can re-organize.  The rules can literally be taught in about 30 seconds, and it is the sort of game that I don’t necessarily care about who wins or loses. It’s a fun challenge to try to be quicker than everyone else at guessing the concepts, and being in charge of the drawing has its own set of challenges.

The word cards are decently segregated, and there is only an occasional word that seems out of place.  I do not know who did the translations (I am assuming that this game was originally done in French or German), but there are also a few concepts which seem somewhat uncommon for American English – but really not too many; and when it happens, it’s not a big deal at all.

If you are playing the game in earnest, there is a nice arc/handicapping system with the three tiered difficulty levels of the cards. Even if someone is particularly good at guessing the concepts, they might be stonewalled for their turn when they are having to draw the challenging concept words.  After all, it is impossible to score on your turn unless someone else can guess your word. That being said, there’s nothing stopping that person from just guessing everyone else’s words, and those might still be easy. But, again, that’s why this is one of those games where I am less concerned about the winning and losing, and I just enjoy the activity.

Until your next appointment

The Gaming Doctor