“Trapwords” (2018) is a game designed by Jan Březina, Martin Hrabálek, and Michal Požárek, with art by Dávid Jablonovský, Filip Murmak, Régis Torres, and Michaela Zaoralová based heavily on games like “Taboo” (1989, with later variants) or “Buzzwords” (2003, with later variants). Players are divided into two teams and have to get their teammates to guess a secret word without hitting a “trap word” that can’t be said. Words are divided into two categories, standard and fantasy, and there’s a lot of general fantasy theming throughout the game.
Most of this theming surrounds the art. A lot of it feels very “fantasy Clash of Clans” in style, with imagery most reminiscent of various highly stylized animated mobile MMORPGs and similar games. The cover art is substantially better than the game pieces, and I’ll admit that I was a bit disappointed to see the main game. That said, I’ll give it points for both distinctiveness (each room has a unique design for the traps within it) and consistency of art theming (it even has custom “books” that help you highlight the word you have to give clues for. Overall, this game’s art is a little disappointing and sort of forgettable, though there are some unique elements.
The premise of this game, as I described above, is fairly simple. It’s “Taboo” with a few twists, the essential one being that the other team creates the list of trap words. For instance, if the word were “ogre”, someone might make a list that includes words like “Shrek,” “Donkey,” “onion,” “troll,” or “green.” Officially, these lists are supposed to be ten words long, but that can vary; as an example, if you’re playing with younger kids, you might want to only do five words to make it easier on them.
I actually like this. One of my major issues with games like Taboo is that they have no ability to adapt to the surrounding context of the players. If the word “ogre” came up while I was playing my parent’s game of “Taboo,” I’d just say “Shrek”, because their copy predates that movie, so it doesn’t restrict that word. Or on the flip side, there are sometimes that there are references I don’t get, because they were contemporary pop culture when it was made, but it’s no longer culturally relevant. This doesn’t have that issue. It allows you to adapt to the group much more fluidly.
I also don’t mind the physical “rooms” you have to travel through to win the game. It’s another thing that’s pretty directly taken from “Taboo”, though generally lower stakes and more casual. It words well enough, and that’s really about all I have to say about it (good or bad). There are also variants where you can only fail to move on from rooms a certain number of times (say, three), or you can’t fail a specific room more than a certain number of times (say, once). Again, I think this is fine, but nothing special.
This is when stuff starts to go downhill quickly. If you are playing this, rules as written (RAW), which I have only done once, because I do not like this rule, the clue-giver doesn’t know what the trap words are. Only the other team does. Going back to “ogre,” it might actually be smart to not make “Shrek” or “onion” one of the words if you were playing this RAW, because the clue-giver would assume those are on the list. They’re the obvious choices, so if the clue-giver is being smart, they would know to avoid them. Now, I think if you are looking for a social deduction game, this could work. I’m a fan of them definitely. But this rule fundamentally changes it from clue-based to social deduction-based, and I don’t think it really fits well into a game like this.
This is where the game really loses the plot. You have the optional “curse” rule, where there are certain restrictions that you can add onto it. Some are actually kind of interesting (“Petrification” means you can’t give more clues after the first guess, or “Feeblemind” requires you to use only nouns), some are weird but potentially cool (“Flood” means you have to give all clues in one breath), some are just bizarre (“Echo” requires you to repeat-eat the-he last-ast sound-ound of-f each-ch word-ord), and some just make no sense (“Darkness” requires clue-givers and -guessers to have their eyes closed, except you can’t use gestures anyway, so this doesn’t matter).
You can also have the optional “boss fight” rule, where you have to defeat a monster to win. In isolation, I do tend to prefer this to the curse rule; I think that the abilities, such as limiting words in the clue or number of guesses, are much more natural for a clue-based game. However, you can’t play this without also playing the curse rule, because the mummy’s ability is to add additional curses. You also can’t play this without the hidden trap rule that I really do not like, because the vampire’s ability is that guessers also trigger the traps, and if they get to see the list of trap words, they essentially get a clue to the words. You’re probably starting to see how this builds on itself.
There’s also an advanced version of each monster card. And you can have multiple monsters in a game. And you can have any number of curses (except where the mummy requires more curses). And you can change the number of trap words. And the inability to see the lists means there’s no accountability to prevent the other team from changing the words on you. And there’s some torch mechanic I still don’t fully understand but I think is sort of similar to the torches in Jackbox’s “Poll Mine” (Party Pack 8, 2021). And, and, and… It just gets out of control very quickly. You might have the advanced troll (5 word limit), the vampire, “Feeblemind,” “Petrification,” and “Flood” all active at once. That is a possibility in an advanced game, and that sounds like a nightmare.
“But Avery,” you might say, “you don’t need to use all of those rules at once. They’re optional. You can opt out.” True. But this game was designed to make that possible. And if you’re going to set up a situation like that, I am going to judge the game on how it handles that situation. “Trapwords” lets you add so many rules that it becomes unfun. Even if you never actually play that way, that is still a design flaw. This game tries to do way too much and it doesn’t end up making sense.
Who would I recommend for? Luckily, the flexibility does mean that, if you’re just playing the basic game (that is to say, “Taboo” with customizable word lists), it’s actually a game with a really broad audience. I’ve played it with younger family members to help practice vocabulary, but I could also see it being good for any type of game night. That said, I do not recommend playing with most of the optional rules. Some (like the dragon or troll) are actually pretty decent, and I think work well. But it becomes so quickly volatile that I would be cautious and particular about adding new rules. In all honestly, if your main draw is the flexible word list (which for me, it is), I’d just recommend getting a better game that has word lists, some pads of paper, and just making your own. (I’d recommend “Telestrations” (2009, or newer variants), though there definitely are any variety of others.) You don’t need “Trapwords” to enjoy the best parts of “Trapwords.”