***KRRRRSSSSSHZZZZZTTHZZZZZ......***
| Walkie Talkie (2022) | |||||
| Designer(s) | Isra C., Shei S. | Artist(s) | Meeple Foundry | Publisher |
Devir Games |
 |
2-8 |  |
8+ |  |
1-4m |
Breaker breaker…you have a blown chicken light you need to check at the chicken coop, over.
Chicken…lights...coop…what?
Your trailer light is out; you need to check it at the next weight station. It is CB talk…you really need to learn the lingo.
You could have just said tha…never mind.
In Walkie Talkie, you are going to come up with your own cool code names based on colors and letters you see. Players will cooperatively work together to try to get rid of all of the cards in their hands before time runs out.
Components 
The game comes in very compact box that holds the cards and rules perfectly. This size box is a standard for their mini-series. The game includes the following components:
- 50 Cards: Both sides of the cards are used. One side will have colors and the other side will have letters. The cards will be mixed on different sides to ensure players will have both letters and colors facing them in their hands (cards are not rearranged and flipped).
- One English rulebook
The components are pretty good quality. They aren’t your cheap card stock but also not your top tier; they are perfectly acceptable for this type of game. I don’t imagine these cards will get damaged too easily if used as intended.
Gameplay
Setup 
Shuffle all of the cards together while they are facing the same direction; take roughly half of the cards, flip them over, and reshuffle all of the cards together (you will have different sides are the cards “face-up”). Deal 6 cards to each player, and then flip over two cards from the deck so one card is showing a color and the other a letter.
When everyone is ready to play, start a time equal of 30 seconds for each player you have (1 minute for 2 players, 1 ½ minutes for 3 players, etc.).
Player Turns
The game is pretty simple and the rules for the words selected are pretty flexible and can be altered to fit the group playing. The most important things: there is no turn order and cards may not be flipped around in the players hands unless an action specifies to do so. Players may play their cards in any order.
When a player wants to play a card, they will select a card from their hand to play on top of one of the two face up stacks in the center of the table (letters played on top of letters and colors on top of colors). That player must now say a word associated with the letter and color currently showing (cannot just say the color even if the letter is associated with it).
So, if you have blue and “S,” you could say “Sky,” “Water,” or even inside jokes/references like “Sayaka.” If someone questions your logic, you have the chance to explain yourself. Sayaka is a character from Puella Magi Madoka Magica with blue hair. If everyone agrees with the logic, game play continues. If the group doesn’t agree, that player must take both of the top cards from each stack.
The only real restriction is the same word may not be repeated even with different cards and you may not say the color game.
In addition to playing cards, if someone every gets stuck, any player can shout one of the following words and everyone must perform the associated action.
The words are:
- Roger: All players flip their entire hand over now showing the cards that were on the back.
- Over: All players hand their cards to the player to their left without changing the orientation of the cards.
Gameplay continues until either time has run out or all players have emptied their hands.
End Game
You will count the number of Asterisks on the cards that were successfully player to the center of the table. If you were unable to finish before the time ran out, you will subtract one point from that score for each card left in the players hands.
If the time has ran out, the players lose. If they finished before time was up, their earn
Final Thoughts
This is an interesting word game that that easily allows for the players to come up with their own word restrictions. I could easily set restrictions such as only specific anime words or games related to games. While I think the 30 seconds per person may feel tight in some groups, but other groups, it may be too much time especially if you have people really good at word associations. I do enjoy playing a lot of word games and easily see this being one a lot of people enjoy. It is probably not going to be my go-to word game, but it will easily be a nice filler when I have a game day or a convention to go and need a few small games to pack. And like the other games I am reviewing in the series, you can’t complain about $10.
