Why Wavelength – a wordgame of opposites – brings you closer to knowing your opponents better
Initially coming onto the games market in 2019 after a successful Kickstarter campaign, the boardgame Wavelength has gone on to become a worldwide phenomenon.
It’s popular for several reasons, firstly because its very simple to set up but delightfully complex in the challenges it poses. Secondly, it is aesthetically beautiful, almost a conversation piece in its subdue-hued and minimalist packaging, but then I digress into somewhat graphic aesthete territory here…
To the game iteself, then. One member of each team – or one individual if its just two of you – plays the part of a ‘psychic’ who sets a hidden target on a dial behind a screen. The psychic picks a ‘spectrum’ card (ie: one with two fairly opposing words on it, egs: hot-cold, colorless-colorful) and offers a clue to the opposing player/s to indicate where the target/bullseye lies on the wheel. Some of the opposing terms are rather more cerebrial, such as underrated thing to do-overrated thing to do; others are more subjective (worst athlete aof all time-greatest athlete of all time).
Now… let’s say the psychic picks up the colorless-colorful card and decides to move the target about a third from the left. He or she may hint that they are thinking of something rather ‘beige’. Where the opposing player or team moves the dial is subjective, really. Generally, you’d think go more left but not too left, since ‘colourless’ is written left on the spectrum card. But say you worked with a graphic design firm, or indeed were an employee of Pantone, you’d be thinking of all shades of beige and then you’d be quivering somewhat into where you should place that dial. So, aspects of object vs subject, and relevance to one’s life and lifestyle come into play a lot in this game.
The wheel is revealed and if the opposite player is clever, he or she’d have gotten the dial right on that target. The closer to the centre of the target scores them 4 points, slightly outside of this is 3 points, and a little more outside of this is a somewhat more humble 2 points.
There are no fancy game pieces such as Monopoly has, but instead eco-friendly cardboard head shapes, in theme with the game’s cerebral content and play.
There are, however, stacks of spectrum cards which isn’t surprising since just about every word in the English language has an antonym.
Word games always offer both fun and education. I know I’ve picked up a few interesting new words since being hooked on Scrabble as a kid, and now as an adult, partaking in boardgames such as That Sound Game and now Wavelength.
Wavelength encourages unique insights into your team mates’ and the opposite player/team’s thinking, fostering interesting debate and conversation, and lending new meaning to big words like ‘dichotomy’ and ‘dissonance’. And who doesn’t love learning new things about folks they thought they knew too well?
My only gripe is that, for a postmodern wordsmith (ie: not too bad a writer) myself, it was pretty easy to score the 10 points to win (show-off that I am) and our gameplay was up in less than half an hour. Perhaps reiterations of Wavelength will appear on the market, making word pairs a little more cerebral, and hopefull with a higher number of points to score to win. Other than that, I love this game!
Wavelength is available from Harvey Norman, Big W, Games World, Gameology and other game outlets, RRP varies. For more information about this fun and handsome and easy boardgame, visit wavelength.zone.
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