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Walkie Talkie
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Description
Get rid of your cards as quickly as possible to obtain the most points. Over and out!
Walkie Talkie is a co-operative game in which players have a very limited amount of time — 30 seconds per player — to get rid of all the cards in their hand, and the more cards that you play, the higher your score.
Everybody has a hand of six cards; cards have a letter on one side and a color on another, and you have to hold your cards however they're dealt to you. Place one card from the deck letter side up and another color side up. When the timer starts, everybody plays at the same time. You can play a letter on the letter pile as long as you can name something that starts with that letter and that "matches" the current color showing; similarly, you can play a color on the color pile as long as you can name something of that color that starts with the letter atop the letter pile. For example, when playing a "B" card next to a yellow card, you could say "Banana!", and when playing an orange card next to an "L", you could say "Lion!" You can't repeat a word previously given, and you can't name the color of the color card.
Whenever you want, you can say "Roger!", and all players must flip the cards in their hand, so letters become colors and vice versa. Alternatively, you can say "Over!", and players pass their cards to the left.
When time runs out, you gain points equal to the number of stars on played letter cards, then subtract 1 point for each unplayed card. Try to score as many points as you can!
Players: 2-8
Playing Time: 1-4 Min
Age: 8+
Every now and again, maybe at the start or the end of an arduous board game night, you just want to throw down some cards and shout at each other. Walkie Talkie perfectly fits the small, fast, loud type of party game that would slide into this void effortlessly. While it may not be anywhere near the best party games I have played, it’s swift, cooperative and does do a few things that make it feel different to other games of this ilk.
Colours And Letters
Walkie Talkie is very simple and light in the rules department. In my opinion, that’s what you need from a brisk game such as this. It contains minimal faff, can be explained in seconds and you’re into the meat of the game before you know it. The game revolves around a deck of cards that has letters of the alphabet on one side and colours on the other.
To set up you split the deck in two, flip one side over and re-shuffle them so you end up with a deck roughly half colours and half letters. You then deal 6 cards to each player, in this hand of cards you will have a nice mix of colours and letters to play with. After that, you flip over one colour card and one letter card, set a timer to 30 seconds per player and you are ready to Walkie Talkie!
Speed Shouting
A game of Walkie Talkie is a blur of card slapping, stuttering and bawling. Walkie Talkie is played in real-time with no turns or downtime. When you can, you place a card down on one of the piles, letters on letters and colours on colours then you have to name something that begins with the top letter and is the colour of the other card. Easy as peas. Everyone knows though, in the heat of the moment, you can easily forget something that’s orange beginning with ‘O’.
One thing I really enjoyed was that there are very thin rules to what you can say. As long as the group agrees pretty much any answer, apart from names of colours is valid. This can lead to in-jokes and funny references that only your gaming group would understand. The manual gives a good example, if you had a green card and a ‘T’, you could say Tom because Tom is a vegetarian. As long as the whole group agrees, the world is your oyster.
Words To Get You Out Of A Pickle
There are times when you cannot for the life of you think of an answer with the current cards in your hand. In these moments the game does have a few things you can do to get some fresh eyes on the situation. You can shout ‘Roger!’, then everyone can flip their hand over, giving themselves fresh colours and letters to try and match. You can also, in emergencies, shout ‘Over!’ When someone shouts over, everyone passes their cards to the person on the left and play continues as usual.
Scores On The Doors
As the rulebook says, there are no winners and losers in Walkie Talkie, which, in my opinion, is a bit fluffy but I can see why they state that. Walkie Talkie is an easy-going, shouty, party game and is more about having fun with friends around the table than crunching numbers and pushing cubes. It does however have a very quaint and light scoring mechanism.
To total up your score, you look at all the letter cards, count the asterisks on them and take away how many cards everyone has left. Unless you get rid of all your cards it does lead to low scores but as I said, the scoring is secondary really to laughing at Brian trying to think of something pink beginning with P, *wink wink’.
Components
Components-wise, there is little to speak of really. It’s just a deck of double-sided cards. The cards are of average quality but the graphical design on them is very attractive. They have a white border, which is great to prevent nicking and white marks from appearing. They are very colourful and even the coloured sides have stylized designs on them, making sure it’s not just a boring block of colour. All in all, even though Walkie Talkie is just a deck of cards, it’s an attractive deck of cards nonetheless.
Final Thoughts
Walkie Talkie is a fun and entertaining way to cooperatively, in real-time, have a laugh with friends around a gaming table.
With the setup, letter and colour combinations always being varied and the fact that people’s brains often forget the simplest thing when there is a timer involved, Walkie Talkie is a quaint way to start or end a game night. Especially after a few drinks, when things start getting rude.
Walkie Talkie, created by Devir Games, is a cooperative card game where 2-8 players must work together to score big. Games last between 1-4 minutes, making them super quick. Did I mention it’s also tiny, you can take it anywhere. Only problem is, how do you play it?
Shuffling The Deck
Walkie Talkie has a simple to setup. Take the cards out of the box and split them into two equal piles. You want one pile to have all the colours facing up and the other letters. Then shuffle these two decks together. The result will be a deck that has an equal ratio of colour cards to letter cards.
Once you have done this, deal 6 cards to each player. Then place one colour card in the middle of the table and one letter card. These cards will act as a base for players to put cards on top.
Finally, depending on your player count set a timer. Each player will add 30 seconds to the clock. So, if you are playing with two, this game will be over in one minute.
How To Play
The object of the game is for players to get rid of their cards. To play a card you must select a colour card or letter card, from your hand, and place it down. When placing your card, you must put it on one of the two piles in the middle of the table. Colour cards will go on top of colour cards and vice a versa. Players will play simultaneously.
Once you’ve placed your card down you must say a word which begins with the letter and is associated with the colour in the middle of the table. For example, if you put down a ‘G’ and an orange card is in the middle, you could say ginger. If the group agrees that your word is correct, play resumes. If you cannot convince the group that your word is associated with the colour, you’ll have to pick up the card you put down and the top card of the other pile.
During the game you cannot say a word which is the same as the colour. For example, you cannot put down the letter ‘R’ and say ‘Red’ if that is the colour card in the middle.
If you get stuck during the game, you can use two code words to help you out:
Roger: If you shoutout ‘Roger’, all players must flip their cards. This will make all letter cards become colours and all colours become letters. This will help get rid of those difficult letters like ‘X’.
Over: If you shoutout ‘Over’, everyone must pass their hand to the player on the left. This is worth doing if you are struggling with the hand you have, and the ‘Roger’ code has been exhausted. It’s also a good way of getting stronger players back into the game if they have run out of cards.
The game ends when all players have got rid of their cards or when the timer is up!
My Variants
Finding Walkie Talkie to easy? The great thing about this game is you can add your own variants. Want to restrict words down to just animals? Do it! When players place cards they have to say animals which begin with the letter and are associated with the colour in play. For example, if you place ‘G’ and the colour card in the middle is orange, you could say giraffe. You can try out other themes too.
Want to play competitively? Do it! This game can be played competitively with smaller player counts. Just give each player their own area and 30 seconds to work through their own hand of cards. Codeword ‘Over’ can be adapted, instead of passing to the left, players can exchange a card. If you are finding the game to quick, you can always lengthen it.
These variants are just ones I’ve tried but once you have the core rules down get imaginative. See how far you can push this party game’s boundaries.
Scoring
When the game has ended, you can tot up points. To do this pick up all the letter cards that players placed during the game. Do not include the base letter card that started off the game. (The one you added to the table during the setup phase.)
Look at the letter cards that were played and count the stars on them. Each star is worth 1 point. If players still have cards in their hand, these cards must be deducted from the score. Each card left in a player’s hand is worth -1. Once you have done some quick maths, you can write the total in the score table found in the rule book.
Remember, you are working cooperatively. Each time you play you’ll be trying to beat your last group score.
So how fast can you think up words and associate them with colours? To find out pick up your copy of Walkie Talkie. Over and out!
Zatu Score
You might like
- Ease of play
- Comical moments where people forget the simplest things
- Quick setup and teardown
- No downtime as the game is real-time
Might not like
- May be too simple for some