Medium

6th October 2020

For the first time in nearly 7 months we're in Woking at 'The Sovereigns'. The last we were here was the 17th March!

The Woking Gaming Club isn't really back up-and-running yet, but a few of us have raised our heads above the parapets to wave the flag and of course; play some games.

The first game of the night was 'Medium', a light word-association card game.

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What's in a game?

• ​Medium cards; there are 270 of these, each card displays a single word, written normally and upside down so two people can easily read them at the same time.
• Crystal ball cards; there are 3 of these, each one has an illustration of a crystal ball.
• Scoring tokens; there are 3 types of double sided scoring token, scoring 5-6, 3-4 or 1-2 points. On the other side they are numbered 1, 2 or 3.

That's it for the components, the quality is perfectly acceptable and the small amount of art used in the game is also OK.

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How's it play?
Before play begins the deck must be created, the number of cards used depends on the number of players. The deck is shuffled and the 3 crystal ball cards are shuffled into the bottom third of this deck.
6 cards are then deal to each player.
Finally, the scoring tokens are laid out with the scores face down and the 1, 2 and 3 numbers displayed.

• Medium is both a competitive and cooperative game, this means that the active player will partner up with the player to their left.
• The active player and their partner in turn each play a single card facing each other. Thus there will be 2 words displayed. 
• Now both players try to think of a common word between the 2 displayed words (It can't be a word on the two cards.). When they're both ready, they both count down 3... 2... 1... and both say their word simultaneously.
• If the 2 words match; then a number 1 token (Worth 5-6 points.) is placed between the 2 players and play progresses to the next player.
• If the 2 words don't match; then the 2 players must guess again. Except this time they must try and find a common word between the 2 different words they just spoke, not the words on the cards, furthermore they can't use the words on the cards or any previously spoken words as the common word. If the 2nd guess succeeds, then a number 2 token (Scoring 3-4 points.) is taken. If they failed again, they get a 3rd and final attempt using the last 2 words they spoke, the same rules above still apply. Success means a token scoring 1-2 points is taken, failing a 3rd time means they score 0 points.
• Play progresses until all players have been the active player, then all players draw cards to refill their hands.

Endgame
Play continues until the 3rd crystal ball card is drawn, which triggers the endgame. The game then continues until the current round is completed and all players have had an equal number of turns.

Each player then tallies up the scores from the tokens to their left and right​, highest score wins!

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Overall
There's not much to say. As you can see from above, Medium is a light game that may appeal to casual players, it is a game that can be quickly learnt.

It's not a deep game either, random chance can play a part and sometimes you'll get 2 words that have no obvious commonality. There is some room for strategy in Medium though. The player that goes 2nd will have the opportunity to play a hopefully suitable second word.

We didn't play the game extensively, but it seemed if a common word wasn't guessed first time, the 2nd and 3rd guesses weren't going to be any better.

It's a strangely stressful game, I think it's because your guess will also affect your partner's score.
Conversely; when it's not your time, observing how other people play is fun.

One potential issue was the scoring, each 'level' of scoring has a 1-point variation in its score and some people are not fond of it. We house ruled it and used the other side of the tokens for scoring, a successful first guess would get 3 points, down to 1 for a successful 3rd guess.

If you like somewhat stressful word-association games, then you might like this. Easy to learn and play, it's a reasonable little filler game.