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If you watch our YouTube videos, you may be familiar with my review of The Mind, in which I make a bold claim of being able to read your minds. Well, if you are concerned that I might be tuning into your thoughts, then I have just the game for you! Head Hackers is not only a fantastic word guessing game, but also comes bundled with and incredibly useful tin foil hat, which will certainly stop me from stealing your thoughts!
How To Play
In Head Hackers, the aim is to get around the board as quickly as possible. Done by scoring points getting your team to guess a word correctly. While also trying to throw the other teams off your scent and guessing your clue words. Everyone needs to pair up and each turn, a player will become the guesser and close their eyes. The other member of that pair will don the flattering and highly effective foil hat and draw a clue card.
That clue card will have three words. Each word having an associated colour. The clue-giver will roll the dice and this will in turn, dictate which word is the word to be guessed this round. This is where the fun begins! The clue-giver must come up with three clues that he will eventually give to the guesser, in the desperate hope that they can guess the word correctly. Be warned however, as the other teams are going to work together in their pairs to come up with three words, trying to match your three clues.
Once you have the three clues ready and the other pairs have written their guesses down, the guesser must guess the word from the clues given by their other teammate. If they get the word, you score 2 points and get to move forward two spaces. You also receive bonus points for every clue you managed to “shield” from the other pairs. However, if any of the other pairs have matched a clue, then they will receive a point for each correctly guessed clue!
My Thoughts
In this frantic party game, you will find yourself trying to come up with even more obscure words as the game progresses. It is amazing the matches you will find yourself having with other pairs.Of course, you can wave goodbye to the win if they keep on guessing your clues!
My mother has always been someone who prefers the simpler games. I will always remember introducing her to Codenames. Once she grasped the concept, her eyes lit up as realised how good the game was. I am pleased to say that the same happened with Head Hackers.
Yes. It's fair to say, I looked a bit of a dork when donning the foil hat. She used some choice words to describe what I looked like. While not getting off to the best of starts, she quickly got to terms with how the game worked. Within ten minutes, she was competitively shouting at her partner and at the other pairs, with that true Christmas spirit. Its games like this that I love. A game that can get a non-gamer absorbed in the space of ten minutes is a sure-fire winner for me!
Of course, that is my mum’s thoughts on the game. What did I think? Well, I loved it as well! As word games go, this is pretty easy to get on board with. It offers up a slightly more competitive edge. That’s something I feel is vital for a good party game. Of course, there are plenty of word-guessing games out there that are suited to parties. However, this just seemed to have a bit more of a fun factor, thanks in part to that wacky hat!
Head Hackers gets all teams involved for the entirety of the game which is a massive bonus. You won’t find a team(s) sat doing nothing on certain turns. The racing around the board gives it that competitive spirit and the concept of trying to guess clue words means the player giving the clues to the guesser really has to don their thinking cap (forgot the foil hat!) and come up with words that are obscure enough to evade the other team while also allowing the guesser to get the word in one!
Head Hackers won’t revolutionise the word game, but it certainly provides a great evening of entertainment! Having played it over Christmas and New Year, nearly each time we played, we ended up playing again, as everyone wanted to try and win that missed out on the previous game. This is another big plus in my book, as the game runs nice and smoothly and you’ll be finishing games off within 20-30 minutes, dependent on the number of players you have.
Overall, this is a great party game. Sure to have people engaged around the table. The generous player count means it will fit most party environments. Yes, you have classics like Codenames but this seems to be a little more fun in my opinion. Be it the silly hat, or the simple concept and competitive element. It just gives a little more in my opinion. It will be a game that will make an appearance at many parties to come!
