Knit Wit Review

There are some board games that stand out on your shelves. Covered with loud artwork and bright colours, they visually scream down at you desperate for your attention. Knit Wit is not a game like that. It captures your attention with its quiet simplicity, its understated charm.

“Ooo”, say your friends as you take it down off the shelf, “what’s this?”

As you slip it out of its cardboard sleeve and lift the magnet flap that interest is heightened, piquing an acute fascination as you reveal the ludicrously lovely contents.

“String?” they’ll ask, “Spools!?”

Then they’ll start fiddling with it and, rather than having to sit through a rules explanation, you can get right down to playing. In a stroke of brilliance, set up is integrated into the game so smoothly you won’t even realise it’s happening. Each loop is placed on the table, around a single spool that’s already out, then a word is drawn from the holder and clipped to that loop of string. Everything in that loop is now associated with that word, but more on that later as you finally place a spool into any region created by the overlapping loops of string that is without a spool, a sad state for any loop of string to be in.

These elegantly designed components steadily combine together to form a tangled mess across your tabletop, as though someone spilt their spaghetti across it. But no one will care because they are all too busy thinking! Each spool bobbing about like a lost meatball sits in the overlap of one or more loops of string, and so is associated with one or more words. “Electric” and “Blue”, say. Your mission then is to scribble down a word or phrase for that spool that all players can agree is both electric and blue.

You’ll need to do this for each spool on the table, but most importantly you’ll need to do it quickly as all players race to complete the list of words and grab the shiny wooden bonus points buttons from the stack. Except you’ll immediately get snarled up in mentally untangling the web of loops to figure out what words go with what spools, then desperately trying to think up a single phrase that hits all the labels. The mental agility required is what makes word games compelling, turning it into a race elevates it to hilarity as your brain groans trying to match “old”, “fast” and “green” into a single phrase! What!? “Runner beans!” Once all the buttons are gone it’s stop writing, pencils down, inevitably ending the writing round with someone crying “Nooo!” as the last button gets snagged. It’s just great!

What follows then is either Knit Wit’s crowning glory or damning condemnation. You’ll go round and read out your answers for each spool, discovering just how stupid, ridiculous or incredibly imaginative your friends can be when put under pressure. Maybe “Blue”, “Living” and “Small” is “Baby Smurf”. But when “Sharp”, “Electric” and “Living” come up together, you can be sure you’ll get some unique answers! Is “Sentient Meat Knife” allowed?

To drive the imagination further, matching answers are immediately crossed out, Scattergories style, challenging you to push for unique answers and to cross-examine your answers at every turn. Pushing everyone’s answers into sillier territory is exactly what I want to see here! Of course, not any answer can be accepted; any player can exclaim “Knit Wit!” to challenge and force that player to justify their answer in 10 seconds or less. And therein lies Knit Wit’s one possible issue…

Like the combination of knitting needles and a leaping dog familiar to fans of film Sightseers, Knit Wit has a sharp, pointy, edge that risks cutting the fun right out of it. Knit Wit sets up a competition, but it creates this vast grey area around what is an acceptable answer, while encouraging out the box thinking as much as possible. And, of course, criticising each other is hilarious fun too. The problem is how easily resentment builds up when players vote down your answers, or how many debates intelligent people can get into over the meaning of words. With the best will in the world there is still an edge of danger to this game’s fun, and I shudder to imagine playing this with anyone truly stubborn or hair-splittingly anal.

Is it unfair to criticise a game for the worst behaviour of its players? It does restrict its viability for certain player groups. I would have thought my group of friends are all very reasonable, but we are competitive enough for that edge to pressing up against the fabric of our fun, even if it wasn’t cutting through entirely. That said if you can sit back and just enjoy your friends’ wit (or lack thereof) you’ll be in stitches! It’s fast, it’s clever, it plays large groups and non-gamers will totally get it. I can see it being pretty perfect family game material!

Knit Wit most certainly has a place in player’s collections. It even outplays spectacular word game Codenames (that we reviewed a little while back) in allowing everyone’s cleverness to be showcased, rather than just the captains’, and levelling the playing field so no one needs to feel intimidated in taking a leading role. I don’t believe it is better than Codenames, due to the (necessarily) ill defined scoring conditions, but at it’s best I can definitely see Knit Wit sitting happily beside Codenames on the shelf. It certainly will on my Creaking Shelf. Will it on yours?

 

Rating: Sharp witted

 

Knit Wit was sent to us for review by Esdevium Games. It has an RRP of £29.99, and is available from your friendly local game store!