Another Train Game?

My gaming group has recently picked up a new party game that's a good deal more challenging than most games in the genre. Train of Thought gives each player two minutes to go through a series of cards, each with a single word. Your goal is to get one of the other players to guess the next word, scoring 1 point for each of you. You must give a clue of exactly three words, one of which is the previous guessed word, and each player then gets only a single guess. If no one gets the target word, then you must construct a new three word clue, using one of the failed guess words in the new clue. In this way, you keep working your way closer and closer to the target word, even if it's initially far away (conceptually) from your original starting point.

The game is both easier than it sounds and harder than it sounds. Sometimes you draw a word that feels naturally connected to the one you're working from, and it's only a matter of one or two clues. Other times, you can't fathom a connection to your new word, and you start spewing anything just to move the players into another arena of the English language. Perhaps most difficult of all is when you draw a word that seems best connected to a word you did earlier in your two minute period; you have to "turn the car around" and steer everyone back to where you've already been, inevitably drawing similar guesses to those you got before, but not quite the new thing you're looking for.

There is some fuzziness around the "spirit of the game" (literally referred to as such in the rules), where you're required to give an actual three word clue (which may or may not be a complete sentence), not merely a two word clue with a useless third word tossed in. You often dance around this issue, your mind sticking on things before you get a third word out, or players bombarding you with guesses before you deliver all three words. For this reason, this is one of those games that rules lawyers will no doubt be unsatisfied with. Then again, party games rarely do satisfy those types of sticklers for precision.

But overall, Train of Thought is fun, plays very quickly, and adapts easily for a broad number of players. I've had fun the handful of times I've played it so far, and I would gladly play it again. It plays out at just four minutes per player (with everyone taking two turns giving clues), making it a great game night opener, or between-games game. I'd give it a B+.