Release Date: May 4, 2018	Download: PDF
Designer: D. Tempest, T. Hyatt-Williams, Ben Drummond	Publisher:  Bananagrams, Big Potato
2-200 pl  | 30 min  |  ages 12+  |  MSRP $22.50

 

Linkee is a party game that asks each team to find an off-kilter link between four questions/clues. First to find the link wins a letter card. The first team to spell Linkee wins the game!

Linkee is simple, addictive, collaborative fun that builds as you play. It’s a game that will bring lots of laughs to any party – a game where it’s easy to lose yourself in the fun of playing, no matter who wins or loses. And that’s the measuring stick of any great party game that calls itself Major Fun.

Written review continues after the break.

Linkee     Official Site  |  BGG  |  Buy

The Concept 

Let’s start with a couple questions.

1. Corn, flat and pita are types of… ?

2. The full name of this African country is the Democratic _____ of Congo?

Bread… republic….

What’s the link? Not sure? Ok, let’s keep going.

3. Complete the lyric “Row, row, row your ____, gently down the stream.”

4. In bowling, if only the 7 and 10 pins are left, this is called a….

Bread, republic, boat and split.

Do you see the link now? It’s bananas, of course!

Welcome to Linkee, a party game that asks each team to find an off-kilter link between four questions/clues. Each round, teams will hear four questions and the first to find the link between the four answers will win a letter card. The first team to spell Linkee wins the game!

The Components

As with so many party games, the main component in Linkee is a big box of question cards. 

Each card has four questions leading to a link at the bottom. There are over 1400 questions in total.

The back of each card has a single letter, these letters spell out the work LINKEE. There are also small notepads and pencils included for each team to take notes.

To play, split up all players into two or more teams. Pick a person to start as the Question Master and you’re ready to go!

The Mechanics

You already know the basics, let’s dig deeper to learn the full game.

The Question Master will select a card and start by reading Question 1. Teams will confer with each other to come up with an answer to this question. Even when your team thinks it knows the answer, don’t say it out loud! Write it on the notepad provided.

On to Question 2 and 3 and 4. Same thing. Pause after each question and kibbitz with your team until you settle on an answer. You’ll end up with four answers to four questions.

These answers are clues. Clues to the real question…. How are the answers connected? What’s the link?

At any point that your team thinks it knows the connection between the answers (even early on after 1 or 2 questions) you can stop the game by shouting LINKEE and declare the link out loud.

Let’s try one!

1. What is the name for a double bottle of Champagne?

2. Who did Tom Cruise profess his love to jumping on Oprah’s couch? Katie ____?

3. Beginning with a C, what is the capital of Sri Lanka?

4. What is the past tense of the verb to draw?

 

Scroll down a bit for the answers…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we go….

 

 

1. Magnum

2. Holmes

3. Colombo

4. Drew

 

Now that you have the clues, what’s the link?

 

Scroll down for the answer….

 

 

 

Ready?

 

 

They’re all detectives!

 

If you’re incorrect, your team is out for this round and the other teams keep going until all four questions have been asked.

If you are correct, your team wins the card. Each card you collect puts you one step closer to winning. Remember each card has a letter on it’s back. The goal of the game is to collect cards that spell LINKEE. One letter down, five to go!

If teams get stuck even after the four questions, there’s a bonus hint the QM can read to give one last nudge toward the link. As before, the first team to say the link out loud wins the card.

At this point, it’s lather, rinse, and repeat until one team wins.

What Sets This Game Apart 

What I love most about Linkee is how each turn your team builds toward an answer. Knowing one tidbit of information isn’t enough. You have to connect the dots by finding two or three clues at least. The more clues you have, the clearer the link will become.

The temptation is there all along to jump the gun and blurt out a connection before hearing all four questions, but the cards are tricksy and what might seem like the obvious link between two clues can take a sudden turn into left field with the final questions.

Each turn is paved with little victories and defeats along the way - it’s a journey. And this trip you take, building toward your team’s answer, makes each turn it’s own little story. It’s own little game inside the game.

There’s more satisfaction and fun each round because you build it - one clue at a time. Your final answer to the big puzzle is only right because you’ve solved smaller puzzles along the way. This incremental payoff also means even the teams that don’t win the card in a round get to experience the fun from these little victories for each question.

Final Thoughts 

Linkee takes a playful attitude toward the typical party game by wrapping a game within a game. This format also encourages people to come up with their own cards and questions (submit yours at playlinkee.com). In fact, over a third of the question cards in early editions of the game were crowdsourced in this manner! Start with a link and work backward to questions and clues OR come up with four crazy clues and find a devilish connection. I don’t ordinarily play trivia based party games and feel motivated to write my own cards. With Linkee, once you get your mind in synch with the format, it’s honestly hard not to go down that path.

You might think collecting the exact right set of letters would make this game drag on since you might get stuck in a cycle where your team can only win Ks or Ls for some odd reason. Not to worry, there’s a simple trading system that allows a team to swap three extra letters for one the team needs. There are also rules for teams forcing another team to discard a letter, but in my experience this rule just makes the game longer, not better. My advice is to ignore this rule unless you’re playing with a group that really likes messing with each other. Better to play a rematch than make the game outstay its welcome.

Linkee is simple, addictive, collaborative fun that builds and builds as you play. It’s a game that will bring lots of laughs to any party - a game where it’s easy to lose yourself in the fun of playing, no matter who wins or loses. And that’s the measuring stick of any great party game that calls itself Major Fun.

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