If you are lucky, this cooperative experience will bring fun and spark some interesting collaborative conversation with your favorite groups of 3-6 people. Repos Production provides a unique word association challenge in this well-implemented So Clover! Game.
Keep score if you wish, but some people might just enjoy the experience and challenge presented by the big green clover boards, which hold the random keyword cards. Some people would think there might be few word associations between these words, and with 220 square word cards each displaying 4 different words, the possible combinations seem endless. However, you will be surprised with how players find ways to connect words that seem dissimilar at first. Take a minute to look at the illustrations above this description for a visual of what these components look like.
After the game is set up, there are two phases to this game. Phase one is choosing clues, followed by resolution. Take a minute to look at the illustrations above this description for a visual idea of how the game components look so the following descriptions might make more sense.
Setup: All players receive a plastic clover board and draw four random keyword cards from the deck, placing them randomly on their clover boards face down and hiding their boards from other players.
Choosing Clues: Keeping your board hidden from other people, flip the keyword cards face up on your board. There will be two words appearing together at the top of each cloverleaf. Looking at these word pairs, think of one word that best describes a common link for each pair of words and write those words on the cloverleaves above them. When complete, it is important to remember how all the keyword tiles were placed. If it helps to take a picture with your phone, feel free to do so. Next, remove the keyword cards from your cloverleaf board, draw another random keyword card, mix it in with the four that were on your board, and place them face down in a pile on top of your board. Everyone will now only see the four words you wrote on your clover board.
Resolution Phase: Choose one player to be the spectator, who then places their five keyword cards face up in the middle of the table. Now the rest of the players work together to try to guess which four tiles were used in which specific location and alignment on the spectator’s cloverleaf board. Using the words the spectator wrote on each cloverleaf, players collaborate to re-create the exact arrangement of the keyword cards.
If all cards are placed on the board in the exact same positions as the spectator used them, 6 points are awarded. If any are not correct, the spectator removes the incorrect cards and puts them in the middle of the table. The other players make one more attempt to correct their mistake(s) and gain one point per correct card for a total of four possible points if they are all correct. The total number of points for this clover is written in its center, and the keyword cards are discarded.
Play continues with each person being the spectator until all clover boards have been evaluated. Add up all points and record the total in the Record of Legends scoresheet provided. On subsequent plays, try to beat your previous score. To add challenge to the game, add more keyword cards from the deck before the evaluation phase. For 3-6 players with a 30-minute playtime.