I’ve talked about a couple different word games on this blog. Mostly in the context Paperback and Paperback Adventures. Word games hold a special place in my heart, as my wife and I played a lot of Scrabble online when we were in a long distance relationship. My partner adores other word games, like Wordle and Crosswords, so it should come as no surprise that when we visited a board game café together, and she saw A Little Wordy on the “Staff Picks” shelf, it was the first game she grabbed.

A Little Wordy was designed by Ian Clayman and Matthew Inman, and published by Exploding Kittens in 2021. This is a two player, or two team game, where each player is given 4 vowels and 7 constants to create a secret word, then players go back and forth using clues to help them guess the word their opponent picked.

The clue cards vary in ability and cost, the cost being berries that you have to give your opponent when you use them, as well as give more berries when you make an unsuccessful guess at your opponent’s secret word. Once both players have correctly guessed the word, whichever player has the most berries is the winner.

The clue cards offer you a myriad of ways to help you deduce what your opponent’s word actually is. From eliminating letters to confirming the first letter, to deducing the length of the word, each clue card is a tool in your arsenal to help you in your quest to figuring out your opponent’s word.

A Little Wordy is a bit of a race, in the sense that the longer you take to guess your opponent’s word, the more berries you’ll be forking over to them. Some of the most powerful clue cards have you handing over 4 or 5 berries at a time, which is the equivalent of 2 incorrect guesses. With 11 letters to pick from, is it more valuable to just guess willy-nilly, or do you use those powerful clues in the hopes that you’ll only need one guess to pin your opponent’s word to the wall?

I imagine the real answer is somewhere in the middle, but A Little Wordy does offer some fun tension that you don’t usually find in word games. Where most word games feel like a vocabulary test, A Little Wordy makes you feel more like a detective. As you use the clue cards and cut down the list of possibilities, you get a feeling like you’re circling your prey. At the same time, you can feel your opponent getting closer and closer. You need to weigh the benefit of using a powerful clue card against just guessing a word and hoping for the best.

There is some significant luck involved with the initial tile draw. Sometimes you’ll pull a Q with no U, effectively just giving you fewer letters to use. Another challenge is that dreaded S, which exponentially increases the number of potential words by pluralizing everything. In that case, hopefully there’s a clue card that will help you pin down where in the word that S is sitting.

A Little Wordy does manage to be exciting and interactive, which is more than most word games can boast. Yes, having a good vocabulary is going to be a boon, and the luck of the letter draw can tilt the scales one way or the other. But it’s exciting when you start to see the shape of the word you’re chasing start to take shape. When your opponent is idly sliding tiles around and getting closer to your word before moving the letters around again. I felt genuine excitement when I got the word right, and it’s even clever in that just because I guessed the word right first, doesn’t mean that victory is surely mine. If I overspent in berries, my opponent has the chance to keep playing and if they guess my word before the berry supply is tilted in my favour, they can steal the victory from my grasp.

If you like Boggle or Bananagrams, A Little Wordy offers a more interactive experience than either of those two games. It’s less competitive than Scrabble, and is adorned with the characterful art that adorns all the Exploding Kittens games. A Little Wordy doesn’t really work as a party game, though, you’ll want to stick to So Clover and Codenames for that situation. But if you do have a single partner who really enjoys word games and puzzles, the deduction element of A Little Wordy fills a little niche that I didn’t even know I wanted until I played it.