Crunching Numbers; Rating Top Small Box Games, Numerically

Board games are ultimately a numbers game, right? So this week we’re bringing three number titled games to the table, and giving you the inside scoop! These games are great pocket-sized party games are a hoot, and will have you lining the whole circus up to take a look at these games! But don’t let their towering appearance fool you, they are suuuper simple to pick up. 

Did we get all the puns in there? We did? Ok, lets get to our game breakdown.. 

3 Wise Words

Players: 4 - 99 (As long as you divide into two teams, the player number doesn’t matter - but you need at least two players on each team!)

Don’t let the sweet owl on the box art fool you; this game isn’t for bird brains. 3 Wise Words is a word-based game about sending secret hints to your team, and avoiding and confusing your wiley opponent team. The main mission: get them to guess the word that’s nesting in your head. To do this, you’ll need to write down three words that’ll lead them straight to the correct answer. Sounds simple enough, but wait — there’s a catch. If the other teams guess any of your three words, they’ll swoop down and steal your points.

What do the words SIMMERED, VEGETABLE, LIQUID have in common?

Well, it would be a poor set of instructions for how to make potato and leek soup. But it might be just wiley enough to avoid the clutches of the opponent team, and give your side the time to figure out your clues!

If you want something easy to gently glide into your night of gaming, 3 Wise Words seems an astute place to start. Just don’t go spelunking the dictionary for extra depth, and keep things light as a feather. 

3 Ring Circus

Players: 1 - 4

Come one, come all! This tiny circus has it all - travel, performers, and most of all fame! In 3 Ring Circus, players take on the role of a circus director who tours the United States at the end of the 19th century. Your objective is to hire artists and offer performances in various towns and cities with the intention of gaining fame. In towns, features are easy to set up and give you starting resources to upgrade your cast; small cities are somewhat more demanding, but they allow you to come into contact with better artists; audiences in big cities are even more demanding and want to see very specific numbers, but performing there brings you much more fame! 

The tightrope to walk here is a classic resource management, and figuring the order to play your artist cards to ensure the best results. As a beginner circus struggling to survive you’ll have to move around the map and make careful choices about what performances will bring the most prestige to your troupe!

With delightfully bright art and a cute aesthetic, 3 Ring Circus is a crowd pleaser for sure. With upped stakes from 3 Wise Words, its a good middle of the evening game night game that will have you chasing each other down with talented clowns before the night is done. Or tight rope walkers. Or knife jugglers. Whichever you manage to draw! 

5 Towers

Players: 2 - 5 

If you’re ready for a scramble to the top, 5 Towers might be just the right game for you. Architects bid each round to buy five tiles placed before them which are pieces of the five kinds of towers that can be built.  Whoever bids highest wins them all! But placement is key, as an architect can only build one tower of each type, and the values of the cards in each tower must gracefully decrease as building them up, so taking too many at once restricts future bids. When the last brick has been laid, the player with the most points wins.

Each card in a tower grants one point. If that tower is graced with a tower top, its cards are worth two instead. The cards in a player's highest tower are worth another point still, while any cards stored down in the course of building will cost points.

This careful juggling of clever bids and tower planning is a fun and light romp, with easy colour matching making it quick to decipher exactly which kind of tower your opponent(s) are building. But be careful - the highest towers have the furthest to fall, after all. ;)