Bez is a force to be reckoned with on the indie gaming scene: arranging playtest days, developing games and generally having her fingers in a lot of different pies. I was given the chance to preview her latest creation called Blether, a party game of talking as fast as you can about absolute nonsense, something I need no encouragement to do!
Starting with a massive stack of cards you will deal 10 to each player and give the starting player card to the person with the longest name.
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| Obviously these cards are very simple prototypes |
The start player also gets a turn marker card telling them who to challenge to a good old Blether! Once you have found your challenger, you must choose a topic, the blue word in the middle of the card, from the three cards visible: one on top of your own stack, your opponent’s and the main stack. Topics are really diverse and could be anything from Gnomes to Giraffes. Once a topic is chosen you get yourself a timer, set it to a minute and off you go, the start player Blethering first for a minute then the challenged player doing the same on the chosen topic.
The aim of Blethering is to get rid of all the cards in your stack, using the black words at the top or bottom of the card. You can use derivatives, so in the pic above you could use smell, smelled, smelly or mix, mixed, mixing etc. Once a card is used you discard it in front of you and then try and weave the next one into your narrative. If you can’t figure a card into your Blether you can turn it over, they are cunningly double sided and put it on the bottom of the deck, with the hope of coming back to it later.
Once your minute is up any unused cards are put on the bottom of the main stack and you retain any you managed to use in your own stack. The challenged player then Blethers away on the same topic. At the end each player not involved in the duel, takes 5 cards from their stack and splits them between the two players to show who they thought did the best. Everyone gets to draw 5 cards at the end of the round, the turn marker is passed and another duel begins. Two rounds later you count the stacks and whichever 2 players have the largest stacks have one final duel for supreme Blether dominance!
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| My favourite topic of conversation |
I played a 3 player game of Blether, and had a great laugh despite the small number. There is so little downtime and it is very entertaining watching people fumble their way through the words that crop up. There are a huge range of words and topics and we found ourselves making up all sorts of ridiculous nonsense: gnomes hatch out of eggs, gremlins are really delicious etc. The things you learn!
When we played it we decided to stick to the topic on the cards best we could, but the game itself does not require you to do so. It did feel to me that sticking to topic would be a lot funnier than just stringing the words together, the restricted space breeding creativity on the part of the Bletherer. However, one of the strengths of the game as it stands is that there is room for interpretation on how one Blethers and different groups, and individuals, will have their own preferences and find their own fun in approaching it in different ways.
Blether will be coming to Kickstarter soon, and if you are looking for an engaging, quick playing, excuse to talk utter nonsense to a bunch of people, then you should look no further.