Easy to learn, flexible player-count, and virtually zero set-up? Yup, Wavelength has all the hallmarks of a great party game. And with an electrically eye-catching box and personality-revealing comparisons it’s sure to turn heads in any group.
Although the game jokingly claims to test your psychic abilities, winning and losing is more about tailoring your clues to your team (AKA getting on the same wavelength). Clues are a single concept that falls somewhere on a spectrum and your team must decide where exactly it belongs. The spectrum changes every round through randomly drawn cards with binary pairs: “Trashy – Classy”, “Bad for you – Good for you”, “Disgusting cereal – Delicious cereal”, “Unsexy emoji – Sexy Emoji”, etc.
The key to the game is what’s alluded to in the rules as “the device”. It consists of a screen, a dial and a wheel with a ‘bullseye’ on it. Every round the players turn the wheel to randomize the location of the bullseye behind the screen. Only “the Psychic” looks behind the screen to see where the bullseye is. The Psychic‘s job is to use their clues to direct their team to the unseen bullseye. The more dead-on they are, the more points their team scores.
The clue cards cover a wide-range of topics, some with specific cultural references (ex. “Slytherin – Gryffindor”), some more general. However, no matter the subject, there is no clue that is not open to interpretation and subject to opinion. Wavelength will incite many a discussion about things you never knew you had an opinion about. This not only adds to the challenge, it also gives the other team their opportunity to strike. While the active players decide where to turn the dial, the inactive team can try to sway, mislead and tempt them to change their answer. And once the dial is set, the inactive team votes on where they went wrong to score points of their own. So, there is no downtime in Wavelength; you are always part of the game.
Wavelength is an easy hit. With intuitive, simple gameplay and a fun setup, it’s a game you can learn in one minute and play all night. It’s a dynamic and exciting game where there is always an opportunity to score, whether or not it’s your turn. With an abundance of clue cards and unique answers for every group, this game sets you up for many a successful game night.