Calliope Games Wordoku - Fun Spelled Out! - Crossword Sudoku - Word Puzzle Board Game for Family Game Night - 1-6 Players - from The Makers of Tsuro and Roll for It!

Our family likes word games. We play Scrabble, Bananagrams, Boggle and many others. My wife and I also love Wordle and play daily. When I saw Wordoku, I had to give it a try and I am glad that I did!The game comes with two bags of tiles, one for the standard rules and the second for the advanced, more difficult, rules. I like that they separated them so that it is easy to get to the table right out of the box until you are ready to advance. The tiles are kept in a velvety bag. The rules are easy to understand and teach and we were able to jump right into the game.Gameplay consists of each player choosing tiles (4 tiles from each of the different symbols on the back of each tile) and forming their own 4 by 4 grid. The game consists of three, 5 minute rounds. During each round each player must rearrange their tiles to form words from left to right or top to bottom. Diagonal or backwards words don't count. At the end of each round, words are scored. The advanced variant simply adds another symbol tile to the mix (of harder to use letters like X and J) and expands the grid to a 5 by 5 size.The wooden tiles are nicely made and are of medium weight wood. The velvet bag is large enough to hold all the tiles easily. There is also a pad of paper scoring sheets, They are two sided but you only get one pad. I plan on laminating a few and using dry erase markers though as this game is going to hit our table on a regular basis.The game can play up to six players but what I really like is the solo-ability. If you can't get a group of people together, you can play it by yourself and try to beat your own score. The only thing that some people might not like is that there isn't a lot of interaction while the game is being played. Since each round is only a few minutes, we didn't find it to be an issue at all though. The game states the age range is 8+ years and I think that, once younger players get the hang of the rules, that age range is accurate.If you like word games, this is a somewhat unique. It can play solo or up to 6 making it great for families and is easy to learn and teach. While the components are good quality, it seems slightly on the pricier side, but in my opinion, it is worth it.

I find the concept of this game interesting--sudoku with words. The instructions take some time to get through and we had to go through a few rounds before getting the hang of the game. It is a pretty fun word game once you get the hang of it and it is definitely challenging. At first, the 5 minute time limit seem too short, but I think it's good because it makes the game go faster. It would be helpful to have a timer included, but it was fine, we used our phones.

The media could not be loaded. My family enjoys playing all kinds of games. I found this new one: Wordoku--Fun Spelled Out from Calliope. I thought it looked like fun, especially since it's the type of game that's in my wheelhouse so to speak.It's listed for 1-6 players 8 and up and takes 20-30 minutes. That's about right. We are a family of 4 (ages 12 and up) and even learning it took about 30 minutes.It's a clever game which requires some quick planning and strategy. It has a collection of lettered tiles. Each player selects 16 and has to make a 4x4 grid with those letters. The goal is to spell words in both the horizontal and vertical direction (like a crossword puzzle). You get a point for each letter that makes up your longest valid word in that row/column. The clever twist is that each tile has a suit (dot, star, clover, square). If you can make a row or column contain one of each suit, you double your score in that row. You can exchange up to 4 from the draw pile. You can also use one of each suit as a wild letter, but you get no points for that tile--but it can be helpful for completing a row/column to have one of each suit sometimes.Another challenge is that the rules state you get 5 minutes for this. We all felt that was not long enough to do as well as we'd like. But, it kept the game moving and required you to think fast and make sacrifices to get the grid completed in time. We might consider extending the time for future games.The scoring in the game is actually not the full objective. According to the rules, the winner of each round gets a winner token. But, for the 2nd and 3rd round, for each player that improved their score from the previous round(s), they get a "personal best" token. The player with the most tokens at the end wins. We felt that was a bit peculiar, in that you could potentially "hold back" in the earlier rounds to collect the personal best tokens and perhaps win without having the best overall score. For our first game, I had the most tokens. I improved my score each round and I won each round as well. I therefore had the best overall score, so it worked out the same regardless of the way you determine the winner.They do include a pack of "expert" tiles to add to the game, another suit and you have to make a 5x5 grid. We didn't play that way yet.Sadly one of our letter tiles came broken. They're real wood and one split along the grain. But, I doubt that makes a huge difference in the game. Aside from our broken tile, the game seems well make and looks attractive. It comes with a decent stack of double-sided score sheets and a velvety storage bag.I really liked this game. It's a challenge I thrive on and do fairly well. It's not my wife's best type of game. My kids were a split as well. One did well and liked it, the other didn't like it as much.

I'd rate this as sort of an okay game, though that sort of depends on how you feel about word games. I'm fine with them, and this one gets a little old kind of fast. If you really liked word games it's hard to tell if you'd like this one more, or if it would get old faster. It's certainly a game, which is more than I can say for some games, so I don't mean to come down too hard on it, but it's also just a bit on the simple end. Fun enough, and probably an okay gift for someone that isn't looking for a complex game but does like word stuff.

I love word games of all types, so thought I would try Wordoku. When I first opened it and started reading the instructions, I must admit I was a little overwhelmed. There seemed to be a lot of rules. I sat it aside and came back to it later. I guess I had a clearer mind and was able to go through it and follow. You use a combination of letter and symbol tiles to create 2-4 letter words and use the symbols on them to boost your score. There are extras such as the ability to exchange each symbol (there are 4 different ones) tile once during each round (there are 3 five-minute rounds). You can also turn a tile over to use it as a wild card (again, there are limits of using each symbol tile only once per round). There are Victor Award tokens and Personal Best Award tokens that are awarded each round based on scores. At the end, the one with the most awards wins--per the game. I'm not sure what I think of that system. If playing people of diverse skills and abilities including children, perhaps it makes sense. It seems that the highest score after playing three rounds should be declared the winner. But...that can easily be adapted as a "table rule". Overall, it was an interesting new word game. I don't know how much I will play it, but it is part of the options now. I think it seems a little overpriced for the contents. I would've preferred a five-minute sand timer to some of the inserts--such as a foldout of other games produced by the company.