The Bottom Line
A great creative game with several levels of fun including sculpture and strategising when you’re going to guess a word or jump your turn using a ‘power cube’.
Pros
- Makes you think of the essential form of objects
- Makes you think in three dimensions
- Encouraged to be slightly abstract in presentation
Cons
- May need to set time limits for sculpting
- Terms riddle and round confusing at first
- Sculptures need to be quite small
Description
- From Rio Grande Games. For three to six players. Length of average game 75 minutes
- Recommended age 12 and up, but could adapt wordlist for younger players
- Round board that folds into four to fit into box
- 6 pieces of modelling clay in different colours for each player
- 6 sets of counters in matching colours: magician, magic hat, elf-stone marker
- 18 power cubes, used to jump your turn, dice, pad of paper and 6 pencils
- Bag with arrows for marking identified sculptures
- Rule sheet explaining how the game works, the parts of the board, scoring, and giving a wordlist
- Words range from easy, such as arrow, right up to tricky, such as candelabra. Or use your own
- Rule sheet gives tips on creating sculptures, what’s too easy or too hard
Guide Review - Barbarossa: An Art Word Game
The principle of this game is simple: each player has to sculpt two or three words they've chosen in clay. You don’t need to be a great sculptor as you’re penalised if your sculpture is so detailed it’s one of the first to be guessed. Though you’ll also be penalised if it’s too hard to figure out. You move around a board landing on blocks which give you the chance to ask a question about a word, to ask for a letter in the word, penalty squares, and to get more elf-stones, used to move. are several levels of fun: first sculpting your words, guessing the other words, and strategising when you’re going to guess or jump your turn using a ‘power cube’.
