Clover Word Play

The party game Just One was a hit with my gaming group (and, indeed, a lot of gaming groups). Now, its publisher has brought us another word-driven, cooperative party game to try to capture our imagination.

From designer François Romain, So Clover is a clue giving game. The game revolves around a large deck of small square cards with "peg holes" in the center. Each player is given a dry erase board (shaped like a four-leaf clover, for the flavor), with pegs that hold cards in a 2 x 2 grid. (Not very securely... but maybe they can improve the prop in a second edition.)

Each of the square cards has one random word printed on each of its four edges. When you place the cards on a clover, you wind up with two different words on each of the four edges of the clover. Your job is then to write a single word clue on each edge of the clover, something you think somehow links the two words on that edge as a clue for your fellow players. Once you have a word on all four edges, you remove the four cards, add a random fifth card without looking, shuffle them, and then turn things over to the other players.

Everyone else now works as a team, looking at the five cards and trying to place the right four onto the clover board, each in the right position and orientation. They get two chances to do so correctly; if they miss any cards the first time around, the player who wrote the clues removes any cards that are not perfectly placed before the group's second attempt. A game of So Clover involves each player taking a clover and writing clues at the same time, then going around the table one by one for everyone to present their clovers for guessing. Nominally, there's a score system that let's you see how well your group can score collectively. In practice, as with Just One, the activity itself is fun enough for us.

The first time you sit down to play So Clover, the task feels impossibly difficult. What one-word clue could possibly connect those two different words? But once you get into the feel of it, the challenge is actually a lot of fun. Not that it's easy, though: you have to watch for the three other words on each of your cards and make sure a clue you're writing doesn't seem like a clue for those. You have to hope that the fifth added card doesn't bring complications you couldn't plan for. You have to realize that no matter how clever you think you're being, you need at least one other (assertive) person in the group to pick up on what you're implying.

The game is not a "Just One killer" (and I certainly hope no one is expecting it to be). But it scratches a lot of the same itches in a fun way. It's quite fast to play, is easy to play for multiple back-to-back rounds, is quick to explain to newcomers, takes a decent number of players (6), and puts the players in full cooperation. We've been playing it a lot in my group of late, but I think soon it will settle in a good place as a go-to game... on a night when things might otherwise be winding down, good to kick things off with while waiting for players to arrive, or something light and fun when you're not in the mood for deep strategy over a couple of hours.

I'd give So Clover a B+. If you're a fan of word games and you liked Just One (or Codenames, Decrypto, or Master Word), you'll probably want to check it out,