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Versus Verses is a creatively fuelled game where players sling lyrics at one another, where funky rhymes are put to the test and we see who can keep the beat going after the other. It’s a fun time for groups as big as twelve and as small as a pair, with cards that are nicely designed for everyone to use and mostly hold up from wear and tear. So let's break it down, start understanding where this game can make you smile or frown. So let’s dive into this game review, with a dictionary and thesaurus to rhyme with a clue, so that we can find out if it's good or if it needs to improve.
Getting away from the introduction, Versus Verses is a team based rap battle game between groups as small as just two players and up to twelve split into teams of six. However, music is optional as the game primarily involves teams saying statements that have to then be rhymed back at them by the opposing team, allowing players to go back and forth until one team fails to continue the chain after an agreed amount of time. Now, the rules do state that players can’t rhyme words with the same word; as it is stated in the instructions ‘if one team drops “purple,” it’s cool to respond with “Steve Urkel” [...] you can’t rhyme a word with itself’. It is a simple game structure to follow, with the added feature that every point a team wins comes with a restriction to the rhyming scheme by the opposing team. Such as if a Team A were to win the round, Team B will give them a ‘Demo Card’ that is used to count their points earned and will have written on it a restriction like ‘Must include a Name’ or ‘Can’t include Nature’. It adds a nice level of difficulty and a fair balance to the game as the winning team will have several more challenges to keep ahead and the losing team is able to catch up due to that.
However, these challenges are simple to overcome once both teams have memorised what words or phrases to avoid. It feels less like an ongoing challenge and more of an initial hurdle for the opposing team, only for it to actually become difficult once the game has progressed far enough between the two teams when several restrictions are in play. In addition, the rules do not encourage that each verse spoken makes sense between the players, as if singing a song back and forth between the players, thus making the game simpler than initially expected from the initial concept. But, this simplicity helps to keep games quick and moving between the teams so that matches are over quickly, this makes Versus Verses a great choice as a warm-up game before starting longer and more intense games. This simplification also marks a positive as the game becomes simpler for beginners or new players to board games as a wider hobby to get interested in and start playing games that are uniquely different to traditional board games.
The cards for the game are stored away in a cassette tape box, with the backs of the victory points looking like cassette tapes themselves adding to the overall theme of the game and the experience of trading demo tapes between players. The card art is excellent with a diverse range of characters that you can choose to represent yourself or your personality with the addition of suggested rapper names on the backs of each card, some notable choices are Doctor Flashback, Mc’Moonback and Big Disco Dave. But, the copy used in this review noticeably was damaged before opening as some of the cards had been damaged on the sides leaving just visible markings on the cards themselves. This won’t be present on every copy of the game but it is worth mentioning as to state the durability of the cards after several games.
Looking back at Versus Verses it is a really fun and engaging small game for groups and parties to get into, particularly if you are interested in games that are quick to pick up and are easy to bring people in as an entry point to board gaming as a hobby. The game is well designed mechanically and the product itself is very nice to look at with a concise and interconnected theme. It struggles to develop into a more complex game though after a few rounds of play and could become repetitive as players find which combinations of additional rules make the game harder or easier. It is worth a pick up to play, but I would definitely be interested in seeing an expansion or version 2.0 that could revise the rules, perhaps encourage players to actively provide verses that could be strung together into an actual song and possibly more restrictions or the freedom for players to make their own.
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