3 Wise Words

Big Potato Games are notorious for creating fun, family board games. This time they’ve created a game that involves clever wordplay, guessing, and owls! It has a minimum player count of 4 and a maximum of 12. Will it live up to Big Potato’s party game reputation?

What’s In The Box?

Upon opening 3 Wise Words, I was astounded to see it was plastic-free! When buying board games, I don’t usually consider their carbon footprint. But was happy to see this game helping the planet. 3 Wise Words comes with 4 owl counters, a die, a board, 300 wise word cards, and a notepad. The game board is beautifully decorated with a neon forest design and has a retro feel.

An abundance of cards ensures you can replay this game endlessly. Yet, the provided notepad is thin and doesn’t include many pages to write on. After playing one game, it was clear the notepad wasn’t a practical component of the game as you burn through it quickly.

Time To Wise Up

Setup is easy; place the board on the table, put the counters on the starting area, shuffle the Wise Word cards, and then get into pairs. It’s best to partner with someone you know as the game leans heavily on wavelength thinking. Teams take it in turns to select a Wise Word card.

One player is the writer, they select a card and write down three words associated with the word shown, while the guesser closes their eyes. Meanwhile, the other teams have to try and predict which three clue words their opponent is choosing.

When everyone has finished writing, the guesser must guess the word based on the Three Wise Words their partner has given. Points are awarded for guessing the correct word, and to the opposing teams for matching the three guess words. Each card contains pink, yellow, and blue words. Which is selected by a coloured die, meaning there is lots of replayability.

Teams

For example, Team 1 selects the word ‘Flamingo’. The guesser closes their eyes, while the writer comes up with the 3 words: Pink, Water and Bird. The guesser correctly guesses ‘flamingo’ which moves their team 2 points on the scoreboard. Team 2 reveal that they chose the words Pink, Bird and Shrimp, meaning they correctly match two words and therefore get two points.

Team 3 guessed feathery, shrimp, eater. They don’t match any and therefore don’t move up the board. Throughout the game, teams continue to move up the board and try to reach the finish first. There is a fine balancing act involved in the game; the more obscure your answers, the less likely the other team is to match. Yet go too obscure and you run the risk of your partner not guessing the word.

Despite being a partner orientated game, the rules state you can have 3 on a team. However, I found being in a team of 3 laborious as you had to discuss with your partner which words to write. This discussion lengthened the game and made the guesser feel like a gooseberry sat with their eyes closed. Furthermore, it was hard to strategise with your team as everyone could hear what you were saying. To stay covert, I opted to write the words on my phone, which was much better than using the thin notepad provided.

Final Thoughts

3 Wise Words is a great little party game. With a maximum of 12 players, it’s the perfect game to get out when you have lots of people over. Furthermore, it’s 10+ which means it’s perfect for large family gatherings. The quick setup and easy to learn rules mean you can dive in and teach new players quickly. With lots of cards to choose from the game is highly replayable, especially when you rotate partners.

The gameplay can seem slow, especially if you have a team of three. I felt introducing a timer would have made the pace and gameplay a bit more exciting. Furthermore, the guesser can feel left out of the party as they spend some of the game sitting with their eyes closed, not participating in the antics of word selection. As with other games of this style, much of the enjoyment relies on the imagination and creativity of the people you are playing with.

3 Wise Words is a typical Big Potato Game, it is replayable, easy to learn, and quick to play. Yet, it does have flaws. Gameplay can be arduous, and teams don’t always work with an odd number. It’s a nice addition to the Big Potato family but there are better wavelength games out there.