Typewriter
Fowers Games have previously published some innovative word games, most notably Paperback, which combined word creation with deckbuilding and which has spawned a number of sequels, prequels and variants. With Typewriter, Tim Fowers, Jeff Beck and Skye Larsen have gone in a different direction. It's a game where the 2-5 players are making words but Typewriter also makes use of an engine-building mechanism...
Played over nine rounds, players are trying to make words using their typewriter key tiles, tho' they always have available an additional shared vowel tile, so even if your key tiles are all consonants you should almost always be able to make a word. The key tiles are all double-sided and they are flipped when you use them; their flip side usually offers alternative letters, a wild card symbol or a special power or ability that you can use.
Your typewriter-shaped player board is actually a meter: you advance a token along the meter by the value of the letters used in the word you create. Along the track you'll pass various symbols that variously allow you to draw an extra key tile from a bag, 'bank' a tile (removing it from play but converting its value into victory points) and/or promote a tile from your bank to additionally score its 'star' value. When you make use of any of the symbols you pass on the meter, you reset the meter back to zero. Each turn you also get to take an additional key tile from the four in a market display, so even if you're banking a tile every turn you're likely still to have at least the same number of key tiles to make use of on your next turn.
Just to shake things up a bit, there's an Event card each round that adds an element or special effect that all players can benefit from that round, but the focus in Typewriter is mainly about creating words and optimising the various effects triggered by the flipside of your key tiles. You also need to make your own judgement call about when to keep key tiles so they can be reused and when it's best to bank them so that they score.
Typewriter is attractively presented, with robust acrylic key tiles rather than the cardboard tokens we were expecting to find. In our plays at Board's Eye View, there were grumbles from some players that the 'meter' and 'bank' elements muddied the Typewriter 'theme' but even those who found the nomenclature thematically jarring were enthusiastic about the gameplay in this neatly packaged game. You can expect games to play quickly because, Event card notwithstanding, players know all the letters and tiles that will be available to them on their next turn. That means that while others are taking their turns you can use the time to work out what word you are going to play. You can focus wholly on your own key tiles without worrying over interference from other players. There's a small chance the shared common vowel tile may change and, if you're playing with the rule awarding set collection bonuses for banking the special effects key tiles, players might engage in 'hate drafting' to deny you the option of adding to your tally of special key tiles of a particular colour, but there isn't otherwise any player interaction.
With generally brisk turns and a strict nine-round limit, even games with a full complement of five players are unlikely to run longer than around 40 minutes. Actually, our two-player games have run just as long as the four- and five-player games because with just two players we've not had long enough thinking time between turns.
