Bamboozled

Bamboozle from Parker Brothers is a delicious union of an instant word builder and Password. This hybrid involves two teams racing to make five words, each starting with random letters. Both teams work on an identical set of letters, and stop their timers the moment they’re done!

Never buy an extravagantly-priced game that requires two AAA size batteries. They’re never in the set when you need them. And don’t even get me started on the likelihood of a star screw driver readily at hand to open the battery compartment! While the LED displays and electronic timers add a certain game-show urgency to the moment, the game works just fine without. There’s a solid two-stage idea at play here. First, two teams scramble to come up with words starting with the same five letters. Second, the teams exchange their word lists, and now have to clue/guess the words.

Aditya brought the game over to Neha’s place. It was an open piece. The scoring pegs missing. The batteries clearly also missing. The man was clueless, and hadn’t bothered to learn how the game worked. If only they’d read the rules, they’d have been charmed with an elegantly simple word game, which promises hours of enjoyable play.

After rattling cubes in the shaker, you tip five cubes into view. The letters facing up are the start letters for the round. Place the shaker in the double timer unit. And start scribbling. There are no extra points for long words. The trick here is to get your words done as quickly as you can. The time you take, is the time the opposition now has, to guess the words on your list. One of the opposition team members clues the other team members. Every word guessed right, moves you ahead on the pegged scoring track!

Bamboozle is a cleverly put together well-finished game, built on a terrific two-staged idea. Understand the game, and you can play it with alphabet flash cards, scrabble counters, or Boggle cubes. Parker Brothers won’t like this. But hybrids are still a little out of reach!

The author may be contacted at arup_kavan@yahoo.com