Review Details

Unspeakable Words

Product Rating:

Product Review (submitted on December 10, 2008):

HP Lovecraft was an author from the 1910s-1930s who wrote amazing, disturbing horror novels and short stories set in the fictional town and surrounding area of Arkham, New England. His stories delve into the possible return of the Great Old Gods (GOOs), malevolent creatures bent on re-creating our world into one where Chaos and Madness rule. An ancient tome called the Necronomicon tells tales and omens of the hidden, parallel worlds in which the GOOs reside; to read it could either provide the key to prevent their arrival or hasten it.

Unspeakable Words is a card based word game in which players try to reach 100 points before going insane. Each card has a letter and a point value based on the number of angles found on that letter. For example the letter ”U” has no angles so there are zero points. The letter “E” has 4 angles =4 points. Each player receives 7 cards and five sanity points in the shape of a tiny Cthulu (a GOO that has the head of a multi-tentacled squid, scaly body with bat-like wings and that resides in an underwater city called R’Lyeh). On each person’s turn they will lay down a word (a minimum of three letters) and add up their score. Next they roll a 20-sided die to perform a Sanity Check, if they roll lower than their score must lose a sanity token. They will draw back up to seven cards and play passes to the next player. If anyone loses their last sanity point they are considered insane and are out of the game. The first 100 points wins.

I was very excited to play this game as I love the board game Arkham Horror, the books and the Mythos (the world, settings and themes of Lovecraft), but it seems that the theme for this game was, “pasted on”. At no point did I feel enveloped in the dangerous, arcane-filled, insanity-inducing world of Lovecraft. For example spelling the word “HALF” will garner you 13 points but having to make a sanity check on a common place word seems odd and not in tune with the Lovecraftian world. They could have easily kept within the theme by providing a list of Mythos inspired words from which a player could try to spell, like “ RLYEH” or “CTHULHU”. There are optional rules, that are interesting, but I think that, had they been integrated into the main rules it would have made the game tighter and thus more engaging, but as it stands they come off as being after thoughts of the designers.

My daughter, having played Arkham Horror, suggested some excellent house rules which we’ve been using and it’s actually made the game more enjoyable for us, that being said my wife (a non-gamer) enjoys this game as it is.

If theme is not such a factor in your gaming experience then Unspeakable Words could be for you, but if you love a game dripping with theme, great narrative or you’re a fan of HP Lovecraft, then you may be better off playing Arkham Horror instead.