Blurrb
- Board's Eye View
- 1 minute ago
- 2 min read
This game is rather hard to classify. It's notionally a party game but it's very much more cerebral than most other party games. If you're looking for a raucous risqué funfest then Blurrb probably won't be your first port of call. That's not to say your plays of Blurrb won't turn out to be raucous, risqué or fun, just that this is a literary game that defies the usual expectations of a 'party game' even moreso than CGE's Codenames, about which we wrote 'if this is your idea of a party game, you are going to the wrong parties'.
Blurrb is a game from AntsNest Games that's themed around publishers' book blurbs. The 3-6 players are each dealt a title card and three blurb cards; a genre category is revealed and players must all compose a book title that incorporates the word on their title card. Players must then compose a book summary up to three sentences long that includes the words on their blurb cards and which of course fits the genre for the round. Players all read out their titles and book summaries and they vote on which is best. That's usually going to be the funniest and/or most outrageous.
It actually makes for a very good game, and one that works remarkably well as dinner party entertainment. Still, some will baulk at the idea of a game that demands that players pick up pens to engage in a writing task. If that includes you then you can play this instead as a pitching game like Sell Outs (Bad Kerning) or Pitchstorm (Skybound) where players pitch their summaries extempora. The rules also suggest the option of a simpler and rather shorter game where players dispense with the blurb cards altogether and just pitch titles.
If you're using the full rules there are some additional elements that further gamify Blurrb. Some of the blurb cards give an instruction or ability instead of words to be used in your summary. These include cards that influence the voting and sabotage cards that let you play a 'writer's block' on a player that takes them out of contention for a vote. The game even includes a wooden block piece to make the metaphor literal.
And if you're playing Blurrb with a group that's not particularly bookish, the genre, title and blurb cards all readily lend themselves to being redeployed in a cinema setting; play the same game simply substituting the task of coming up with movie titles and summaries.
