Crosstalk Review – Dropping Players Into the Deep End of Word Games and Hoping They Can Swim

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother. This is the best way to sum up Crosstalk because, like this joke, it’s all about the clue-givers saying one thing but meaning another.

Crosstalk is a team-based party word game where you need to pick your words carefully, and your team carefully-er. It follows a familiar pattern of breaking up players into two teams and then selecting a clue giver from each.

These two players are then tasked with getting the rest of the group to correctly guess a code word. However, all the one-word clues they give to their team must be announced publically, ensuring each member from both teams hears. Then after giving a clue, the opposing team gets the first chance to guess the answer.

So then how do you get your team to guess the code word without tipping off the opposition?

Well, the answer comes in two forms. The first is at the start of the round when you provide your team with a private clue. Give your team some additional context for your clues to come.

The other way is with the hint board. This can only be done once per round, and only after your team failed their guess. However, with this hint board, you can code your clues even further. Secretly tell your team which clues to emphasise, which to ignore, or even which clues are opposite to the code word. This ups the complexity of the public clues you give and allows for all sorts of clue-giving shenanigans.

Teams keep taking turns until one team guesses the answer correctly, or near enough to be accepted. Then you swap clue givers, clean up the dry-erase boards and start the next round.

Be sneaky with your deception

Most party games I’ve played, with the notable exception of Decrypto, err on the side of whimsy. Crosstalk on the other hand is a gamer’s game, with a heavy emphasis on strategy. Specifically, when you introduce the hint tiles.

Thankfully, if you’re not in the mood to get down into the weeds of covert clue giving. You can play without the tile, and it lightens the strategic load significantly. The game is still fun, but it loses the one element that makes Crosstalk unique – and excellent.

Before the hint board, you need to be sneaky with your deception. Like a pun about cheese, you gouda be subtle about it. After its introduction, you can straight up say nonsense and yet still be a fantastic clue-giver.

You’re granted so much freedom with this hint board. Now you can combine multiple clues, put some false ones in to throw off the other team or tell your team to guess the opposite of what you said. Of course, this also changes the game from being a straightforward clue-and-answer game. To you instead wondering if anything that’s being said is true.

This additional layer of maybe, maybe not really adds to the game. As a guesser, you need to communicate with your team which clues are worthwhile and which aren’t.

This leads us to the other exciting mechanic with the hint boards. In that, they’re one use only. Creating a consideration for timing. Whereby handing it over early gives your team an information advantage, at the cost of leaving them open to deception afterwards.

So deciding when it’s too early, or too late, is an additional strategic element. Often when I was the clue giver, I’d consider a couple of clues for the future and mark them down. Therefore, even if I handed it over early, I could still make plays that would disrupt the enemy team.

These kinds of decisions are surprising coming from a party game. However, they’re also what makes Crosstalk stand out as a unique offering within the space.

Quality takes time

Crosstalk isn’t a game that you start playing and be instantly good at. It takes time, and practice as the clue giver. Ensuring your team has the information they need to get the answer, while the other team gets nothing is difficult, and something you won’t get right on your first play.

Therefore, you’ll have a couple (sometimes a lot) of games that are non-starters while everyone finds their feet. Rounds that only last one or two turns before the answer is guessed. These aren’t super exciting and don’t show off all that Crosstalk has to offer.

Otherwise, Crosstalk suffers from a lot of the same issues other games of this genre suffer from. For instance, you’ll find you enjoy being a clue-giver or clue-guesser more. When you’re not in your preferred role, you might not find it as enjoyable. Particularly for Crosstalk where a lot of the interest and fun part of the game comes from the clue-giver role.

Then there’s the downtime that comes with clue-givers coming up with clues. We all know quality takes time, but I’d rather watch Grown Ups 2 for a year than watch someone else think for any more than five minutes.

Speaking of downtime, when it’s not your team’s turn there’s not much to do. Yes, you can sow seeds of doubt in your opponent’s team, but generally, you’re just waiting until it’s your turn again.

Crosstalk gets compared to Codenames often. Both word games have a surprising amount of depth within them. But while they might be the same pool of water, Crosstalk is the deep end – and you need to learn how to swim before you can fully enjoy the game.