Are you game?
I distinctly remember seeing a rather expensive imported version of the same game around six months ago. There were just a couple of pieces on the store shelf. I dithered. The game seemed interesting, but the approximately Rs 1,000 sticker price gave me pause. And then just a couple of weeks ago, I came across SHOUTIT from Toysbox. Retailing at just Rs 125. It was the same game I had hesitated over, at a tenth of the price, and the aesthetics did not make me shudder!
Great value buys often turn out to be terrible disappointments. To protect myself from the ignominy of a silly purchase, I usually put off opening the box for a while. With some trepidation, it was finally time to try! The box is reasonably sturdy. The contents neatly
held in place with plastic wrap. The letter vendor device has a nice solid feel about it.
The sliding mechanism works as it should, even under an interrogative style stress use test (repeatedly sliding the device expecting it to come apart any moment). It did nothing of the sort! The alphabet tiles (36 each in orange and green) have to be popped out of frames. The alphabet tiles are well printed. The rounded top edges are a nice touch. It was a pleasure to pop the tiles out of the frames. All went smoothly till, sadly, at the very last couple of frames, backing paper behind the tiles tore unevenly off as the letters
detached. Suddenly, the pleasure of seeing neatly stacked tiles was diminished by a whole set with jagged bits of paper sticking out along the sides.
I stacked the orange and green letters in the vertical bins, closed the lid of the slide mechanism on the letter vendor device, and did one front-and-back slide. Magically, two letters appeared in the tray — a green tile ‘H’ and an orange tile ‘K’. Now it was a race
to make words beginning with ‘H’ and ending with ‘K’. Instinctively, we played four-letter and above words. Three-letter words is downright silly. Five-letter words and above is exhilaration guaranteed. The joy of word games!
Play instructions helpfully suggest several game variations. The longest word wins /destination words / the longest list wins / bluff. It suggests points and tiles capture as victory indicators. Move that slide once, and you’ll immediately come up with at least
three more variations you could play. SHOUTIT is a winner. This is a first rate price-value proposition. All that’s required now, is for people to buy the game and invest the time to play. When it comes to board games, unfortunately that is a real challenge!
The author may be contacted at arup_kavan@yahoo.com
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