Letter Jam – The Unboxinating!
Today’s Unboxinating features a cooperative word game called Letter Jam (by Czech Games; whose arsenal also includes Galaxy Trucker, Dungeon Petz and Codenames to highlight just a few). I’ve played a couple rounds of Letter Jam and it’s a fun game where you play your own letter cards face out and blind but try to guess what they are from words made from the other players’ cards which are visible to everyone but that player. I may do a game spotlight later but for now – on to the unboxinating!
Number One: The Parts. We have a rules book, letter cards, card stands, round numbered chits, red and green markers, hint cards, player pads, pencils and a sharpener. The numbered chits are nice and solid and have a good feel to them…they remind me of the older edition Splendor chits where you just want to clink them together. I do have a big BOOOO for the limited resource pads and pencils but I bought laminating material and have righted that wrong toot suite. The Games Library Copy now features reusable player sheets and dry erase markers. I will also have to figure out if I can bend the tops for secrecy or if I need to throw in privacy shields. Long Short – QUIT INCLUDING LIMITED RESOURCES!!
Number 2: The Limited Resources. OK, the pads of paper are pretty and I like how they designed them with space to fold up so you can keep your stuff secret. I also appreciate Czech games including a pencil sharpener along with the pencils. That was a nice touch
Number 3: Hint Cards! I like the design and function of these. During the game you use the front picture side to house the hint tokens. There is some useful info on these cards too – the upper right tells you which card to use for how many physical people are playing and the lower right tells you how many cards per non-player hand are dealt out. Pretty nifty as you are going to have these cards out the whole game anyway. On the flip side is the scoring matrix – again by number of players.
Number 4: I just noticed when taking pictures for this write up that the seeds in the strawberry are letters. Nice touch there, Czech Games. Well played art design team.
Art design team putting it into overtime! I discovered that the cards have matte backs and as I was holding them just so the light glinted off this subtle clear gloss design.
Number 5: I have a question though…what is up with that rectangular QR code looking thing on the card borders? It’s not even the same code for the same letters and I couldn’t find reference in the rules as to why it’s there. It looks like it ought to do something but if it’s just a design element why are we straying from the fruity jam theme? If it does do something, where in the directions does it tell me what they do? Hrrrmmmm.
Lastly :
