Room Escape Artist

For the word game player who has everything

Location:  at home

Date Played: July 2024

Team size: 1-4; we recommend 2-4

Duration: 60 minutes

Price: about $29.99

REA Reaction

WordSnap is a new twist on an old favorite style of games.

It would be an excellent on-boarding to the worlds of Bananagrams and Scrabble, given its large squishy tiles and bold letters.

Am I glad to have WordSnap in my games closet? Certainly. 

Will I bring it out more frequently than Bananagrams or Scrabble? Probably not.

If you love games in this style, and already have all the other standards, add WordSnap to your collection.

Who is this for?

• Word lovers
• Any experience level
• Tabletop game enthusiasts

Why play?

• You love word games and you own all the other ones.

Setup

The gameplay is similar to other tile-based word games. Mixup all the tiles, place them face down on the table, pull 7 each, and then take turns making words and integrating them into the other words that players have made. There is no board, so words must connect to the previous player’s word in some way, creating a crossword like grid as you continue to play. WordSnap’s twist is that instead of just the orthogonal directions, you can also place words diagonally.

Gameplay

WordSnap by SD Toyz was a standard play-at-home board game with a easy level of difficulty. Those who like word games will enjoy this infinitely more enjoyable than those who don’t. A large vocabulary is helpful for this game!

Analysis

➕ The large letter rubber pieces are great to play with. They are definitely easier to pick up than smooth bananagrams or traditional wooden scrabble tiles.

❓ Play this game with a timer. It’s not required in the rules but because tiles aren’t hidden from competitors, skilled meta-gamers will burn a lot of their time not only thinking about what is their highest scoring move in the moment, but instead thinking about what that potential high scoring word will mean for their competitors placement options. Without a timer to restrain oneself, you can keep meta gaming forever… especially because the wild double word and wild double diagonal word scores can be reused if you add onto those same words in the future.

➕ This game is easy to transport. The metal tin will probably make it into my luggage the next time I road trip.

❓Playing with folks who had only played Scrabble and Words with Friends before, this new non-orthogonal placement of tiles was at times a slight challenge. Sometimes it appears as if you could start a word on the diagonal, only to find out the puzzle pieces didn’t fit based on how the words were arranged around it.

➖ WordSnap is not really doing anything earth-shatteringly different in the word games space.

Tips For Players

• Space Requirements: A large table
• Required Gear: a paper and pencil (or your phone) to keep score

Buy your copy of SD Toyz’s WordSnap, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.

Disclosure: SD Toyz provided a complimentary game.

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