Cluzzle Review
Party games are pretty much designed to be simple
and easy to play by just about anybody with the minimum of time and effort, and they’re also designed so that everybody has loads of fun while playing. So play the game a few times with relatives who don’t normally play anything, and it’ll seem like one of the most fun experiences that can be had with a game. The problem being that for seasoned gamers, there’s often not much fun to be had after a few games with the same group of people – party games tend to get pretty repetitive very quickly indeed, and with less emphasis on strategy or depth there’s little to keep players from coming back except on special occasions (such as Christmas get-togethers when you can't coax people to play anything particularly complex!).
In Cluzzle, players create sculptures from clay, and the other players have to guess the word that the sculpture represents. These sculptures – clay puzzles, or ‘Cluzzles’ – are created after each player has been dealt a Cluzzle card. Each Cluzzle card contains a variety of words or phrases, and players choose one as the basis for their sculpture. Once sculpted, they are placed around the circular centre board on the corresponding ‘Clay Station’ (each player has one of these that matches the colour of clay that they are using) and three two-minute rounds of questions begins. Each player can ask two questions per round – in order to remember how many questions have been asked, each player has two question tokens which are turned over once a question has been asked. During each round, players also secretly write their guesses on a sheet of paper. After each round, players read out their guesses and points are awarded for any correct guesses. The scoring is unique and interesting – essentially, the harder a sculpture is to guess, the more points are scored by the sculptor and the player who guesses. Although if a sculpture is too hard to guess, no points are scored by anyone.
Like most party games, Cluzzle is great fun the first few times you play, but suffers from the aforementioned over-familiarity with the people that you play with – as they inevitably gravitate towards certain subject matters and visual cues with their sculptures. Not only that but people always seem to ask the same questions from one game to another, and it soon becomes very easy to second guess other players. Playing with different groups of people as much as possible obviously lessens this to a great extent. The actual sculpting of the Cluzzles never gets tiresome – there’s something incredibly relaxing about sculpting, and the clay always seems to maintain a very squidgy and pleasing texture (as long as it’s kept in the ziploc bags between games) that just makes it fun to play around with. It is a superb game for children though, although some of the phrases on the cards can prove to be a bit too abstract for younger minds.
Cluzzle succeeds in the same way that other party games do: providing an almost instantly playable game that can be enjoyed by just about anyone. It fails in the same way that other party games often do though, in that the game can start to feel repetitive after a little while. It’s recommended if you can get together with different groups of people to play with – and also if you have little ones that can play the game too.
Summary
Presentation: Nicely colourful box art, and lots of nicely produced components. The clay itself is excellent and stands up to lots of moulding – after many games of this, the clay is still perfectly malleable. 9.1/10
Clarity of Rules: Clear rules with good examples of sculpting, but a slight lack of explanation in a few areas does lead to a few grey areas when playing. 7.8/10
Game Length: Around twenty minutes for a full three sessions, each consisting of three rounds. This can be modified as the players see fit to create longer or shorter games. 9.5/10
Value: Lots of components and a big stack of Cluzzle cards mean that the game is very replayable provided that you can vary your game group a bit! 8.2/10
Overall: A fun game with an excellent, if unoriginal central premise – clay sculpting/guessing has been the subject of numerous games – but a well done scoring system that creates an even playing field for the less artistically inclined means that this is probably the most accessible and enjoyable clay sculpting game available. 7.6/10 (not an average)
Review by Jason M. Brown
and easy to play by just about anybody with the minimum of time and effort, and they’re also designed so that everybody has loads of fun while playing. So play the game a few times with relatives who don’t normally play anything, and it’ll seem like one of the most fun experiences that can be had with a game. The problem being that for seasoned gamers, there’s often not much fun to be had after a few games with the same group of people – party games tend to get pretty repetitive very quickly indeed, and with less emphasis on strategy or depth there’s little to keep players from coming back except on special occasions (such as Christmas get-togethers when you can't coax people to play anything particularly complex!).
In Cluzzle, players create sculptures from clay, and the other players have to guess the word that the sculpture represents. These sculptures – clay puzzles, or ‘Cluzzles’ – are created after each player has been dealt a Cluzzle card. Each Cluzzle card contains a variety of words or phrases, and players choose one as the basis for their sculpture. Once sculpted, they are placed around the circular centre board on the corresponding ‘Clay Station’ (each player has one of these that matches the colour of clay that they are using) and three two-minute rounds of questions begins. Each player can ask two questions per round – in order to remember how many questions have been asked, each player has two question tokens which are turned over once a question has been asked. During each round, players also secretly write their guesses on a sheet of paper. After each round, players read out their guesses and points are awarded for any correct guesses. The scoring is unique and interesting – essentially, the harder a sculpture is to guess, the more points are scored by the sculptor and the player who guesses. Although if a sculpture is too hard to guess, no points are scored by anyone.
Like most party games, Cluzzle is great fun the first few times you play, but suffers from the aforementioned over-familiarity with the people that you play with – as they inevitably gravitate towards certain subject matters and visual cues with their sculptures. Not only that but people always seem to ask the same questions from one game to another, and it soon becomes very easy to second guess other players. Playing with different groups of people as much as possible obviously lessens this to a great extent. The actual sculpting of the Cluzzles never gets tiresome – there’s something incredibly relaxing about sculpting, and the clay always seems to maintain a very squidgy and pleasing texture (as long as it’s kept in the ziploc bags between games) that just makes it fun to play around with. It is a superb game for children though, although some of the phrases on the cards can prove to be a bit too abstract for younger minds.
Cluzzle succeeds in the same way that other party games do: providing an almost instantly playable game that can be enjoyed by just about anyone. It fails in the same way that other party games often do though, in that the game can start to feel repetitive after a little while. It’s recommended if you can get together with different groups of people to play with – and also if you have little ones that can play the game too.
Summary
Presentation: Nicely colourful box art, and lots of nicely produced components. The clay itself is excellent and stands up to lots of moulding – after many games of this, the clay is still perfectly malleable. 9.1/10
Clarity of Rules: Clear rules with good examples of sculpting, but a slight lack of explanation in a few areas does lead to a few grey areas when playing. 7.8/10
Game Length: Around twenty minutes for a full three sessions, each consisting of three rounds. This can be modified as the players see fit to create longer or shorter games. 9.5/10
Value: Lots of components and a big stack of Cluzzle cards mean that the game is very replayable provided that you can vary your game group a bit! 8.2/10
Overall: A fun game with an excellent, if unoriginal central premise – clay sculpting/guessing has been the subject of numerous games – but a well done scoring system that creates an even playing field for the less artistically inclined means that this is probably the most accessible and enjoyable clay sculpting game available. 7.6/10 (not an average)
Review by Jason M. Brown
<< Home