The board game industry is amidst a boom of talent and innovation. Thousands upon thousands of designers are becoming recognized. Publishers are gobbling each other up, in the hopes of becoming the top big shots. Amongst the hype and rubbish are the rare, hidden, mystical designers that choose to defy the norm, and self-publish. Not all are good, but once in a while, a true delight reveals himself.
Tim Fowers is one such unicorn. He designed a game called “Paperback.” While the name is terrible for Google search, it is an apt summary for his game. Re-implementing word games into a deck building system, it puts sexiness back in Scrabble, updating it with trendy, pop-culture fashion.
In the game of Paperback, 2 to 5 players start out with a simple deck of letters (R, S, T, L, N), and wild cards. On a turn, the player draws 5 cards and tries to make a word. There is a pile of “common letters” to help make a longer word. The score built up by the letters of the chosen word allows you to buy bigger and better letters from the market. These newly acquired letters go into your discard pile along with the letters you’ve used for that turn. The discard pile eventually trickles its way back to your main deck of cards, ready for use in later turns.
The goal of the game is to generate a high enough word score to buy the “big fame card” pieces. These represent large Hollywood literature pieces a writers dream to accomplish during their careers. The game also has systems that allow other players to help a player unable to make sense of their drawn cards. The player who asked for help awards cubes to their chosen word, which can be cashed in later for additional word scores.
Getting a copy of this game is difficult. Due to its self-published nature, Tim only runs limited quantity for print. Mostly these will be pre-order quantities to keep the costs low. I got my copy because of a friend who was flying home from US. Tim only ships via postal service which is highly dependable if you’re within their country. For other countries I am unsure of the reliability, but for The Philippines, with its congested ports, it may be months before it can arrive, if it isn’t lost in transit.
Paperback has a print-to-play option for the German version of the game that you can order online as well. The English version was only available for its Kickstarter backers. If you are interested in trying out the game just message me so I can bring it in one of the local game meets. Paperback is an elegant game to share with your kids and family. Until next time, make your games count.
