Give this small, unassuming box a shake and you’ll hear a muffled dinging. A most heinous component rests inside this compact pink package: a yellow bell from hell. Engineered for maximum sweatiness around the table, Big Potato Games’ raucous party game You Can’t Say “Umm” is a modest package that will induce overwhelming stress in all but the best orators.
A threatening title to be sure, with the foundational rule in bold white across the cover, You Can’t Say Umm is a game for four to ten players split across two teams. One team will sit and scrutinise while the other will nominate a “describer” who will try to convey the single words on pairs of cards hidden from their team. Don’t say umm, don’t stutter, don’t verbally trip over yourself. Get a stodgy pairing such as “Clumsy” and “Jelly”, too bad, you’re stuck until your team guesses correctly. Or the timer runs out, as the guessing team must work against a 45-second sand timer. Each correctly guessed pair advances that team up the score track by a point and allows the describer to draw their next pair, culminating in a 20-point chequered finish line.
So, what’s the penalty for umming and ahhing? The team not currently guessing will possess the pesky aforementioned yellow bell, ready to smash that dinger every time the describer trips up while communicating to the eager guessers. With every correct ding for catching a stutter, the bell-bearing team score a point due to their opponent’s fumble. As you can imagine, trying to carefully and quickly convey weird pairings of adjectives and nouns against a timer and an obnoxious bell is a special kind of hell. Whoever is in that hot seat is bound to snap ala Dennis Reynolds’ buzzer breakdown on the ‘Family Fight’ episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Pricey boot? But the boot is… Ab-b-breviated… The name, I mean… Uh (audible exasperation)
After the first half-dozen games played, my groups quickly began cycling through word cards from previous sessions. This can be a boon for party games, as players devise shared references and in-jokes for describing cards. With this game, though, people would sheepishly resort to the same successful descriptors, feel a bit cheap, and then wish for more variety.
But, exactly as I had expected, there was a mix of groans and gasps when I first introduced You Can’t Say Umm to my board gaming group. I remember one guy hanging his head and saying, “I’m going to fucking suck at this.”
And he did, much to the laughter and enjoyment of everybody else. Yet while those rules seem simple and can be gleaned from a glance at the box, there’s a little bit more going on.
Before a game of You Can’t Say Umm begins and that sand timer is tipped, both teams will secretly draft a set of three special rule cards to assign to the opposing team. When a team passes any of the three marked thresholds on their side of the point track, they will reveal a damning additional rule for their team to now immediately abide by. What initially seemed a devilishly simple game about trying to remain calm and eloquent in the face of your unforgiving, dinging opponents is something much wilder. These rule cards affect the entire team rather than just the guesser. The custom rules range from simple restrictions like not being allowed to say words beginning with letters like Y or T, to more physically involved acts like only being allowed to talk while leaning sideways as far as you can. My personal favourite is having an opportunity to assign the rule card that says the team must only talk in a high voice, a fun exploit when facing off against a bunch of bassy blokes. These rules stack wobbly atop one another, creating games where you could be ringing and scoring off of a team that forgets to both lean and talk in a high voice while guessing (or describing). Madness.
The lightning-quick setup and teach make this perfect for a pub setting—if you want to be banned from said pub
The final rule to sneak in occurs when a team is just five points out from victory. A delightfully mean catch-up mechanic, the team about to cross the finish line must all now abide by the golden rule. That is, guessers are also prohibited from stuttering, in addition to their three revealed rules. Because any breach of a team’s rules means points for the opposing team, you can practically taste the tension in the final minutes of a game. It is not uncommon for a guessing team to spend their last few rounds in complete silence, forfeiting their chance at more points due to fear of letting the opponents score on the likelihood of a blunder. Alternatively, you may encounter a headstrong guessing team that throws caution to the wind and perseveres amidst the chaos, refusing to be shaken by their many stuff-ups because the finish line is within reach. The hubris of this latter approach has often seen a distantly trailing team scoop up the win by diligently dinging for every rule breach.
My strategy veers towards the tenacious: if I talk too fast, the other team can’t possibly catch all of my stuff-ups!
There are two main points in which You Can’t Say Umm might fall apart for some players. Firstly, when a team has the bell, there’s nothing to stop them from falsely dinging it to throw off the describer. After all, they only score on correct dings and suffer no penalty for frivolous ringing. Some players will abuse that bell in the hopes of either forcing an advantageous rules breach because of nerves and chaos, or simply distracting the guessers. Many times on the guessing team I have had to plead for my teammates to not engage in disputes with the bell ringers because time is running out! Secondly, extending on this point, when rule cards are flipped and restrictions increase, it becomes hard for both teams to settle the legality of blunders while the sand timer is still draining. This has resulted in some heat at the table, where I have had to cool off players who have found these obvious exploits to be upsetting to their focus and enjoyment. Conversely, half of the folks I’ve played with have thrived in these high-pressure arguments, hurling accusations and clawing at points with semantics.
Oi, hey, you broke eye contact while talking! *DING*
To Big Potato Games’ credit, this criticism is one they’re conscious of and address on the back of the rules pamphlet by suggesting a referee. Indeed, playing with an uneven amount of players will allow one person to adjudicate on the side. This is not necessarily the better way to play for every group but encourages players to remain focused on the game as the stakes get increasingly hairier. The referee can manage the maverick bell ringers, as well as keep watch of the sand timer. Because everyone’s attention is on the guesser, for better or worse, players will constantly miss the sand timer. This isn’t a complaint, but rather, it adds to the hilarity as rounds start being minutes long because folks are simply too engaged in watching the describer squirm to check the timer.
Final Thoughts
Even after playing You Can’t Say “Umm” to death, I am not sure whether the crew over at Big Potato Games are geniuses or devils for this design. The rule book is deceptively light and teaching this is a breeze. There’s just no knowing how players will respond to the intensity and overwhelming noise that this game produces, both in volume and disruption.
The inclusion of the bell is a choice that equally limits the game’s appeal while also selling it. Short tempers may want to steer clear, but I would readily put this in front of anyone else who isn’t mortified at the prospect of monologuing under intense pressure and scrutiny. If only there were more variety in the word cards, I could see this being a perfect games night icebreaker for the right rowdy bunch.
Review copy supplied by the publisher
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