“Decipher” – who broke the alphabet for me?

In  Decipher  , we take on the role of a word-maker who comes up with and codes a word. The other players try to guess them – whoever succeeds scores points.

However, it will not be that simple. The encrypted word consists of long and short line fragments of letters and two types of arcs. The guessers in turn take these parts, find a place for them on the board, and arrange letters from them. At any point in the game, each player can use one of three chances to enter the correct password – if he hits, the points are distributed (interestingly, also for the word-maker) and the next person comes up with the word. When each player has had the opportunity to come up with a word, we count the results and choose the winner.

The way  Decipher  is released pleases the eye – plastic letter fragments are colorful and easy to arrange. The insert is an integral part of the game and provides a holder for a screen, a tray for letters and their fragments, and a stand for the board. The encryption key is printed on the sides of the box, making it easy for everyone around the table to read it. The box has a great cover and a consistent graphic style, everything is colorful and legible at the same time.

Decipher  offers simple and fun gameplay, while giving us the satisfaction of deciphering letters. By means of deduction, we cross the next possibilities in our head and try to guess the password. Sometimes, even having all the fragments of letters on the board, we do not have a clear answer – the same will look like FAMA and BENCH.

The game is aimed at families – we can successfully play it with parents and children who know the letters well. If we do not exaggerate with the difficulty of words, the box 10+ years will be rather exaggerated. Decipher  will also work well with friends who do not sit in board games every day – the game resembles a bit of  Scrabble , a bit of  Mastermind , a bit of a classic gallows. The rules are simple and the gameplay itself is pleasant.

After arranging a fragment of a letter, we are tempted to go through all possible combinations of the word that you have invented. This means that we can spend too much time checking all options and delay the next player’s move. This is especially true when playing with a full squad of four.  We won’t spend the whole evening with  Decipher – it’s best to play one round and postpone it.

After a few games, we may notice some guessing patterns which will make the decoding of words too mechanical. Then  Decipher  becomes a nice gadget, a word-arranging toy, where the actual gameplay and counting of points take a back seat. I had the impression that the idea was better than the proper game and the mechanics of the scattered letters could be used better – but these are too high requirements for a production that is primarily intended to be fun.