Ctrl

• Designer: Julio E. Nazario
• Publisher: Pandasaurus Games
• Players: 2-4
• Ages: 7+
• Time: 15-20 minutes
• Times played: 4, with review copy provided by Pandasaurus

Ctrl is a pastel colored abstract area control game – all fought over a black central cube.  The game starts with a 3×3×3 cube that has one block of each player color stuck into one of the cube’s holes. Each player has a matching colored flag that sticks out of their block. The rules have some 2D diagrams/photos to show you where to put them…  In a two-player game, each player controls two colors, but at the start of play they secretly choose one of those colors to be their scoring color, with the other color serving only as a blocking mechanism.  Each player gets a card to remind them of their color and takes the rest of the blocks in their color – there should be 21 of these.  The starting cube, and all other cubes attached to it, form the Battlefield.  The Battlefield can be freely rotated on the table, but it can never be lifted from the table (i.e. the bottom of the cube always remains the bottom, and nothing can ever be attached to the bottom).

The goal of the game is to have the largest Domain on the Battlefield – and this is measured by counting the number of exposed faces on the Battlefield at the end of the game; that is what all players have placed all of their blocks.

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 Master Word

• Designer: Gerald Cattiaux
• Publisher: Scorpion Masque
• Players: 3-6
• Age: 12+
• Time: 15 mins
• Times played: 5, with prototype copy provided by Scorpion Masque

Over the years, I have found that I am almost always interested by my first look at word games. The problem with word games is that they are often finicky – often needing the “right” set of players to make it shine.  One of my favorite all-time game experiences was playing Montage with three other gamers familiar with cryptic crosswords.  The amount of ingenuity, creativity and laughs has maybe never been surpassed.  But, I have found that it tends to flop when played with groups of imbalanced vocabulary or crossword experience.   But, that other group might do really well with Password or Electronic Catchphrase.  What’s My Word is another favorite, but it is limited to two players.  Decrypto is another great game that shines with the right group.  So, when I heard that the company behind Decrypto was producing another word game, I was instantly interested.  The big question for me was: where would Master Word fit in the pantheon of word games?

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