What's the Good Word?

Are you familiar with the two-player game Mastermind? One player creates a secret "code" out of four hidden pegs. The other player has a limited number of attempts to guess it, receiving clues along the way about which pegs they've guessed are part of the solution.

This game was undoubtedly a touchstone for the newer creation Master Word. One player has a secret password that they're trying to help the other players -- working as a team -- to guess. Initially, only a broad category is known: the group is trying to guess a character, a brand, a food, or some such. Over six rounds, each player writes down a sort of "20 questions"-esque suggestion to narrow things down: "is a cartoon," "is clothing, "found in a supermarket," or some such. All the players' ideas are arrayed in a row, and then the clue giver indicates how many of the clues in that row are accurate.

Only once during an entire "game" can the master indicate which clue was accurate. More players on the guessing team can make for more suggestions and in theory more information... but can also make the deduction harder. Two rounds ago, when two out of five clues were said to be accurate, which two was it? These, that seem to naturally fit together, or something more obscure?

It's almost more activity than game... which isn't necessarily bad. My group of friends will play Codenames and Telestrations for the hell of it, not truly keeping score even though both of those games do come with defined scoring systems. But designer Gérald Cattiaux seems to have wanted something more gamelike here, introducing an odd element for actually guessing the password. The whole team collectively has three opportunities to make an official guess, writing it on a specially designated clue card and substituting that for one of their normal "narrow things down" style entries in a round. If they're right, they win. If they run out of guesses, they lose. If they write down the right answer and it's not on one of the three special clue cards, they also lose. It's not immediately clear what this adds to the experience, other than to introduce a "but be careful!" element that's more gamelike.

With or without that element, I would say that Master Word does have a light touch. I mean, obviously, truly enjoyable games for large groups are almost always going to have easy-to-explain, simple rules that just about any potential player can easily wrap their head around. Even by that measure, I'm not entirely sure there's much "there" here. Yet also, it is sort of fun to quickly go once around a table, giving everyone a turn as the password "master." More than one time around, though, I'm not sure I can quite see... not with so many strong group games out there. (And certainly not in the age of COVID, where group games aren't really even a thing.)

I give Master Word a B-. I can imagine many people "more or less" enjoying it... and liking other games in the genre better.