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Concept: Board Game Review

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concept box

Opening the box for Concept feels much like unpacking a new iPad. There is same matt white plastic, the same clean and simple design philosophy, and the same tactile thrill as you pulled the components from the insert. In fact the only real difference in between opening a iPad and opening Concept is that you don’t have to re-mortgage your house in order to do it.

Its not just the packaging that shares the aesthetics of Apple products. The game board itself resembles some sort of giant iOS display. Dozens of square icons with rounded corners sitting in neat columns. The only thing missing is the angry birds app and a background hum of smug superiority.

Concept is a game for between two and twelve players aged around ten and up. In it the players attempt to communicate words and phrases to each other by putting counters down on relevant icons on the board. It’s a bit like charades, but instead of gestures you use a pre-set and finite set of pictures.

So in order to do the word “milk” you might put a counter on the icon for foodstuff, a counter on liquid, and a counter on white.

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Or if you wanted to do Van Gogh you would put your counters on the icons for male, art, ear and cut:

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Easy peasy lemon squeezy right?

Well yes, but not all the concepts are that easy. There is even a sliding scale of difficulty for you to chose from. The options range from “crocodile” and “brick” all the way to “get your sea legs” and “Statue of Christ the Redeemer”. There are also ways of you indicating “sub concepts” within the main concept using different coloured counters. Should you want to you can make the game very tricky indeed.

I really like Concept. In fact I really really like it. By placing severe limitations on your means of communication the game brings out the creativity and lateral thinking in its players. Much like the wonderful Dixit, Concept allows you to get a fascinating glimpse of how your friends and family’s brains really work. And sometimes that glimpse can be very funny indeed.

The rules of the game are short, but relatively vague. The designers of the game clearly consider this to be a game that is played for fun rather than competition, and points and scoring seem added almost as an afterthought.

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This casual approach to doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Concept is a warm game, best played to enjoy the company of the fellow players rather than coolly test your metal against them. It’s one of those games that you’ll probably end up playing until you feel ready to stop rather than to the rather flimsily set end objective.

However if grinding opponents into the dust is more your cup of tea then the game can be easily corrupted to accommodate that style of play. I can certainly envisage a team vs team variant which would be cut throat and intense enough to end the most solid of relationships.

Concept is a fantastic game, ideally suited to family game nights and grown up’s dinner parties alike. Its one of those precious games that both kids and adults can play together and enjoy equally.

It’s also an extremely accessible game. Anyone can pick this off the shelf and be up and running and able to teach others to play within five to ten minutes.

Concept is a game that deserves to be as mainstream as Pictonary or Cranium, and with a bit of luck combined with it’s recent nomination for the prestigious Speil des Jahres gaming award I’d not be surprised if it catches the cultural zeitgeist very soon.

Concept can be bought at a your favourite multinational faceless online megastore for about £25.


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