Qwords

• Designers: Bernhard Lach, Uwe Rapp 
• Publisher: Kendi
• Players: 1-15
• Age: 8+
• Time:  15 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

The word game Qwords, first released as Kreuzwort, features four letter dice in different colors and one black die that features a combination of two colors on each side.  

Each player gets a sheet and secretly marks any two spaces of the 5×5 grid with a small dot.  When everyone has done so, pass the sheet to an opponent; thus players will likely start with a unique sheet.

On a turn, you roll the five dice, then see which colors are showing on the black die. Each player chooses one of the letters showing on the two indicated letter dice and writes one of them in an empty space in the 5×5 grid on their player sheet.  If a question mark is one of the chosen dice, you can place any letter.  The Orange die also has a special face that allows that player to use any of the five traditional vowels.

For the first turn, each player must use one of the two squares marked with a dot.  On the second turn, each player must use the other marked space.  Otherwise, there is no restriction on where to place your letter after the first two turns.  

After 25 turns, players score for the longest word they’ve created in each row and column on their sheet, earning 1-3-6-10 points for a word 2-3-4-5 letters long. Players also get a 10 point bonus if they have a word in every row and column on their sheet. Whoever scores the most wins; there is no tiebreaker.

My thoughts on the game

Qwords is a deceivingly simple word game.  Roll the dice and choose one of the two available letters.   Though the game is originally German in origin, the dice work just fine for an English language game as well.  I suppose you could probably make the “Z” dice face be “Y/Z” as the Y is used in English about as often as the Z is in German.

https://letterfrequency.org/letter-frequency-by-language/

The strategy here is to try to get the longest words possible. You’ll have to try to place common letters in places where you can build words off of them in both rows and columns, but of course, everyone is at the mercy of the dice.  It can be super frustrating when the white wild side or the orange any-vowel side comes up, but then the black die doesn’t let you use it!

Coming up with short words that can later be extended with more letters is key to victory here.   For instance, if you can get EAR down, you can save the other two spots, and possibly make it EARN or EARTH.  If EAR doesn’t start at the beginning of a row or column, you can maybe convert it to BEAR, TEAR, NEAR, SEAR, etc.

The rules are pretty loose on what is an acceptable word, and we tend to let just about anything fly – it makes for a better game.  If there’s ever a question about a word being valid or not, we just ask before we write the letter down and the rest of the table can immediately adjudicate.    For a little filler, this game works great.  Each round takes but a few seconds, and most games will finish in under ten minutes. If you like crosswords or other word games, this will be right up your alley.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…