So Clover! Review – The Best Party Game You’ve Never Played

In 2021, the release of one of the best party games of all time went largely unnoticed. It’s surprising but also understandable that no one has heard of So Clover! It has what I’m coining as an anti-theme – a theme so bland and uninteresting that it actively repels people away.

For a comparison of bland and uninteresting things, if you turned Mark Zuckerberg’s face into a theme, then that would be twice as good as the theme on So Clover!

Fortunately, it takes more than a boring four-leaf clover on the box to scare me off. Under its leafy green cover lies one of the best party word games around.

So how does it play?

In brief, everyone gets a clover, a marker, and four square cards with a word written on each side. You place these on the clover to create two words on each outer edge. Then you write a one-word clue that joins these two words together somehow.

For instance, if I had the words: Sword and Future, then my clue would be “lightsaber”. But you’re not going to get sword and future! You’re going to get cruddy combinations like Dictator and Fish, or Raisin and Lifejacket.

Once all four sides have clues, you take them all off your clover and shuffle in a random card from the deck. After everyone’s done the same, the group takes turns trying to complete clovers, by trying to put the original four cards back into their position.

Creativity abounds

What makes these word games so fun is the creativity they force you to have. They trap you inside their ruleset and force you to come up with new thoughts and combine ideas you wouldn’t have otherwise.

This can be psychological torture sometimes – especially if you have to combine Dictator and Fish! But when you get it right and find the right combination it’s a light bulb moment, and you’re filled with euphoria.

Then there’s the fun of watching the rest of the table finish the joke:

How many board gamers does it take to turn on a light bulb?

When they get it right, you feel like the smartest person alive. When they don’t, no worries, as it’s equally fun watching people struggle over your clues. You silently cheer them on while remaining stalwart as commanded by the rules.

The success and failure of word games rest solely on whether or not they can elicit this feeling. And So Clover! does. But of the other games I’ve played in the genre, they’ve always broken players into roles: clue-giver, and clue receiver; murderer, and detective.

So Clover! stands out like a bad fanfic, as you get to play both murderer AND detective.

While one person is writing down clues, everyone is writing down clues.

You spend next to no time waiting for clue givers, and once everyone’s done you then have round after round of guessing. This lack of downtime grips your attention like a wrestler, picking you up and spinning you around. By the time you’re back on your feet, everyone’s had a turn and it’s time to write your next clues.

It’s all about the delivery

The actual puzzle of the game isn’t revolutionary by any stretch, it’s on par with the best word-guessing games on the market. And like many of these games, it’s simple to teach and easy to intuit based on the components given to each player.

However, what elevates So Clover! above its competition is its delivery.

Compared to Just One, which fell off quickly with my group, So Clover! has stayed around for the last 6 months. It is the only word game that sees regular play at my table.

This is because:

• it delivers that feeling of creativity so frequently,
• has a short playtime,
• works well at all player counts,
• it’s small enough to fit in your bag alongside other games,
• and works for all levels of experience.

So you’ve heard it a million times before, but for So Clover! it bears repeating. Don’t judge a board game by its cover. You’ll be missing out on one of the best party games you can lay your hands on.