I had my game night on Saturday and a game that I’d wanted to pick up for a while came in with Paperback. Mainly because it does two things that I know my wife enjoys in games. Deck building, mainly because it’s a concept she’s familiar with, and then a word game. So we got it to the table once on Saturday, and does Paperback hit the mark? Or at least what are the early impressions of it?

How To Play Paperback?

Like I said above, Paperback is a deck building game. That means that you start out with a hand of cards, in this case letters, and you draw a hand of them. You use those letters to make a word, that gives you are “score”, really purchase power, to buy more letters or point cards. The turns go around with drawing up to a hand of five, making a word and buying more cards.

The game ends when one of two things happen. Either someone has put down a 10 letter word, after 7, 8, & 9 have been completed to take the last common card. This card can be used by anyone any time. Or two of the scoring piles are gone. Then you add up the points on the cards that give you points, different than the “score” when is just for purchase power. Player with the most points wins the game.

Initial Impressions

Generally, I like this game and what it does. It rides a balance between something like Ascension with it’s ever changing market, and Dominion with it’s scoring cards that clog up the deck. I think it’s easier, less combos, to think about than either of the games, though. And unlike the Duchies and other scoring cards that clog up a Dominion deck and do nothing, these scoring cards do still give you a wild letter.

And I think that is a nice balance in the game. I like being able to play out a big word. I like using the double letters so that my hand of five can create a 7 letter word. But, it is not a game that gives you too many dead hands. In a four player game, I think there were four times where someone couldn’t buy something. Twice because we didn’t have enough wilds or vowels. So my hand is all consonants and I’m stuck. And twice because there were no low cost cards left to buy.

And I like the two different ends to the game. We went through two scoring piles. But I did play down and get two of the common cards. That means I played a seven and eight letter word before anyone else did. I almost was able to do a nine letter word, but couldn’t quite get that one.

How Is It As A Word Game?

I want to address this separately. I think that there, generally are a few, two really, types of word games. The first is the Scrabble type of game. In that game, knowing big words can be good. But Scrabble, in my opinion, is about pattern recognition and playing to optimize placement. If I know a big word, doesn’t matter if I don’t line up my “J” or “V” on the double letter score. You pick words to optimize the tile placement.

Paperback is not that type of word game. Instead it falls into the second camp. The second one is about what words you have in your vocabulary. I still need to puzzle out how the letters in my hand best create a word. But I don’t play my word off of anything else. That means that I score that word in a vacuum. Or, another way to think, what I do doesn’t matter to what word you create. Letter Jam is also in this category, but different.

Now, both types have their flaws. If I recognize patterns better than you, I win at Scrabble. If I create larger words with “harder” letters in Paperback, I win. This is an inherent problem that can arise in most any word game. Even Letter Jam, which is cooperative has some of this problem. But Paperback is up there with Letter Jam for a game that limits that.

How Does It Compare To Other Deck Builders?

That is the other thing to talk about. I compare it to Ascension and Dominion. But I do think it is a bit more than them in some ways. I say in some ways because it is about the vocabulary aspect. It requires a different skill than just deck building.

I think that it does a good job with it’s powers though. Most any deck builder, from Dominion and Ascension to Lost Ruins of Arnak and Clank! offer cards with powers. Paperback does a good job of keeping it simple. I think it is about as simple as Dominion whic just gives you more purchase power, number of buys, or action cards you can play.

But the powers on the cards work. I mentioned that if you play a seven letter word you get the common card. With a hand of five cards, you need cards with powers to let you draw more cards next hand. I think they do a good job with the cards that draw more and other powers. Other powers allow you to purchase better cards that give you more “score” to buy more cards. We didn’t get the high scoring cards, but with the right combos we could have.

Final Thoughts on Paperback

Obviously, this is initial impressions, but I want to give some of my preference with this game. I like it, I think it is a good word game. If I have a concern with it at this point, is that some people will struggle with some of the options that they have. I had 9 cards in hand one time, that is capable of being a lot of words.

I also wonder a bit about variety in this game. Am I likely to push for high cost cards, high cost letters, which are harder to play in hopes of getting the really high scoring cards? Or is it better to get more of the lower cost ones and fill up my deck that way. I want to experiment with that a bit more, because maybe it would be worth it.

And I do like that they offer an expansion for it. That adds in cards that have three letters on them. But they also have modules. We didn’t play with any of them, but it is just different things to get mixed in. That means that some of my concern about variety is already taken care of. Initial judgement, if you like word games, this is a fun one.

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