You don’t know the power of casting spells until you’re able to cast spells yourself.
OK, even if they’re fake, they’re still pretty fun to cast. Needless to say, Lexicon GO! Harry Potter Word Game is muggle magic.
From Top Trumps USA (not related to what you could be thinking), the game challenges players to create wizarding words using a set of 10 random letters. Players will race against each other to get rid of all of their letter tiles and win the round. Be the first player to take five rounds and you’ll win the game faster than Twitter’s response to Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s *~*intense sexual past.*~* This Harry Potter edition of Lexicon GO! is made for at least two players ages 8 and up.
If you are a Lexicon GO! newbie (this muggle was one), it will take a couple of rounds to get the hang of the gameplay. But trust me: It’s easy to learn and master, so much so that all of us were standing up and screaming at each other after just a few minutes of playing. (Or is it just this office? It totally can’t be just this office.)
Fifty-five tiles are neatly packaged in an L-shaped pouch adorned with the Harry Potter logo and wizarding world aesthetic. The tiles feel like pint-sized versions of dominoes, so they have a slight weight and feel to them — AKA they are sturdy and are sure to last a long time.
Most of the tiles are printed with a letter, but players can also find a Polyjuice Potion tile, which can be used as any letter for players to use in their words, and various spells — because it is a magically themed game, of course. Players can cast Expelliarmus, which gives permission to mess up an opponent’s tiles; Stupefy, in which a chosen player has to close his or her eyes for 10 seconds; Revelio, a useful spell in which the player can look at a tile before swapping one he or she doesn’t want; and Depulso, which allows the player to discard a tile from his or her pile.
To play, shuffle all the letter tiles face down. Each player will take 10 tiles and can flip them over after someone enthusiastically declares, “Lex GO!” Everyone will start playing at the same time, trying to form letters from their letter pile or “attacking” another players’ word by adding or replacing letter tiles on their existing words. Don’t like a letter in your pile? You’re free to swap a tile from the draw pile.
Rounds can last anywhere between a few seconds or minutes. Short rounds means you don’t have to commit that much to play (read: sitting down for an hour reading through an instruction booklet to realize how the heck to even begin playing). Each round goes by so quickly that you’ll just want to keep going over and over again.
Players will use a mix of luck, strategy, and quick wit to win each round. Gameplay is fun, fast-paced, and sometimes gets heated, especially when reminding each other of the rules, such as no plurals, proper nouns (except for Harry Potter nouns!), one-letter words, or acronyms and abbreviations. If a player can spell “snitch,” he or she automatically wins the round, just like in Quidditch. And, don’t even get me started on casting spells on each other. Just like Mario Kart damages lifelong relationships, this aspect of the game could probably end friendships.
Lexicon GO! Harry Potter Word Game is an interactive travel game with simple portability. Gameplay is speedy and players will have to use their noggins, call back Harry Potter knowledge, and cast spells to pull out a win.
This review was originally published on the Toy Insider.
