Just One Review – A Fantastic Game (If You Can Stop Being So Good at It)

It’s a bit late, but I want to take you a couple of months back in time to when I first played Just One. It’s Christmas. You’re wearing a green and red jumper with a yarn reindeer nose hanging off the front. Outside, it’s snowing.

Not.

We’ve never seen snow in Queensland. Anyway, it’s still really cold, freezing in fact. You’re sitting by the fireplace with your brother/sister/partner and your uncle who’s had a bit too much eggnog is stumbling your way. What do you do?

• Wait until he sits down and bemoans his failed marriage for the third time this evening.
• Or reach into your bag of party games and pull out a distraction.

Well, you’re reading this review on a board game blog so I’m a little biased. In this situation, like all situations really, the board game bag is the first point of call. But instead of pulling out Lost Ruins of Arnak, or Sleeping Gods this time, I’d pull out Just One.

A simple word game fun for all literate ages and states of inebriation. Where one person must guess a word that everyone else knows, and everyone else needs to give them a one-word clue. However, if two people provide the same or similar words, both clues are wiped out.

Turning the happy-go-lucky guesser into Shakespeare’s King Richard frustrated and struggling on the battlefield, “A clue, a clue, my kingdom for a clue!”

After several rounds, the rulebook says you’ve ended the game. But more than likely you’ll play many more times before you pack it away.

It’s good to be bad

For some context, Just One just won the Spiel des Jahres Game of the Year Award in 2019. While it fits comfortably alongside the other winners of this prestigious award, it’s not without criticism.

The most enjoyment we got from Just One was when everything went wrong. Whether it was people writing down the same clues, or the clues were so diverse that the guesser was stumped as to what it could be.

When this happens, everyone bursts out laughing in disbelief. But even at five players, these situations were rarer than you might think.

However, if the team consistently give good clues and get the right answers. Then Just One doesn’t illicit that joyous laugh-out-loud energy you want from party games.

I’d go so far as to say it becomes dull.

Still, there’s a case to be made that maybe you need more players. Just One scales up to seven players, so maybe at that higher player count clue givers will bump into each other more often. Creating the chaos I’d expect from a Game of the Year winner.

Fly-in fly-out board gaming

Just One is a game that will get academics and philosophers pondering the question: what is a game? As while there are rules, a goal, and points, they all kind of don’t matter.

The activity of guessing a word, and giving clues is fulfilling enough in itself. Case in point: Wordle. So, like Telestrations, you end up not caring about points or winning or losing. You just have a pleasant time.

Another plus is it’s one of the few games that allows players to come and go as they please. Making it perfect for Christmas, where you’ll have people playing for a bit, then tending the barbeque.

Or the three-year-old who just pooped their pants.

Hopefully, they wash their hands in between.

This flexibility in player counts makes Just One the perfect game to kick off a game night. Where people said they’d be at your house at 5 but arrive in dribs and drabs over the next hour and a half.

Once everyone’s arrived though, I’d swap into playing something that provides more consistent fun and laughter like Monikers and Telestrations, or something more steeped in thought like Murder Deception in Hong Kong or Decrypto.

However, as an appetizer, Just One is more deep-fried mac and cheese balls and less two-week-old fish soup. Bleh!