SNAP Review – VENN

Andrew, are you familiar with a Venn diagram?

Anitra, we’re nerds. Of course I know what a Venn diagram is; you do too. A Venn diagram is when you use overlapping circles to show the differences and similarities between multiple items.

Good, because this is a SNAP review for Venn: A clever game where clues and art overlap.

Game

Venn is a guessing game for two or more players, ages 10 and up. It’s published by The Op, and a full game takes 20-30 minutes.

Art

Let’s talk about the art in Venn.

Well, Venn has stacks of cards, a track used for scoring and word assignment, and big floppy circles!

The track is pretty plain looking, but is cleverly used for two different things.

The cards are weird – really weird. Like, trippy weird. They are surreal in much the same way as a game like Dixit, but it looks like a lot of them were pieced together from clip art.

These circles are the cool thing. They are the base of the game – they’re translucent and you can lay them out to make your Venn diagram.

Mechanics

So how do you play Venn?

There are actually two different ways to play – you can play cooperatively (with as few as two people), or in two teams (with at least four people).

In team play, each team lays out their three circles in an overlapping pattern like a Venn diagram. Place four random word cards next to the scoreboard, so each of the 12 numbers lines up with a word.

The clue giver from each team draws a number card – the three numbers correspond to the words they want their team to guess this round.

So in this case, if i drew this card with numbers 9, 1, and 6, my team’s words would be TIE, WHITE,and NATURE. Meanwhile, the other team drew this card with 11, 2, and 10, so their words are PRECIOUS, SOUR, and TOGETHER.

When both teams are ready, the clue givers begin quickly looking through their stacks of Art cards; if they find one that would be a good clue for their team, they lay it on the diagram – here’s where the name Venn comes in. They may lay the card in a circle by itself to clue a single word, in the join between two circles to clue two words, or in the exact middle to indicate that it is actually a clue for all three words for their team.

Each area of the diagram can only hold one card at a time! So if you find an Art card that fits better, you have to lay it over the old card completely.

The rest of the team discusses what words they think are being clued, as as soon as they think they know, they yell VENN! – at this point, both teams stop and must guess their words.

Your team gets one point for each correct guess, and a bonus point if they got all three words right. Move the little venn scoring markers along the track.

Refresh the word cards and have a new team member become the clue giver for each team. Draw a number card and get ready to go again! The game ends when at least one team has reached 12 points.

For a cooperative version, use a single set of circles and a timer. The Clue Giver gets just two minutes to lay out cards and give the best clues possible. Then the rest of the group guesses the three words. Can your group earn 12 points in five rounds or fewer? (I think we did… We did!)

Expectations

What did we expect from Venn?

This seemed like a pretty typical word-guessing, clue-giving game. Using a Venn diagram is a little bit nerdy, and we did like that.

When I first saw this on the table, I was excited about these floppy circles. I like the floppy circles! They just look cool.

Surprises

What surprised us about this game?

It is nice that we have a game that is a party game but that you can play with two people. We definitely like it better with more people, as team play, but being able to play cooperatively was a pleasant surprise.

The other surprise is the Art cards. They are so weird! (really weird)

It’s hard to use them for clues a lot of the time, but I think that’s part of the point. It’s definitely a brain stretch. I love watching peoples’ faces as they’re like “no, no, no…”

I am a little irritated at the word cards and number cards. They are really easy to read, and the words line up nicely with the scoreboard – but they are not quite square. It makes them hard to line up, put away, and put back in the box.

Recommended?

Would we recommend Venn?

It’s easy to understand how Venn is supposed to work, even if the Art cards don’t always make it easy to play (they’re weird…) That makes it more of a challenge.

This seems like a game that would be great for holidays or family gatherings, or even an ice-breaker sort of thing. It’s the kind of game where overthinking a picture won’t really help you, so it works great playing with kids as well.

We didn’t like the downtime created when Clue Givers can’t find any cards to place. It’s good that they’re hard, but when it becomes a long period of time flipping through the cards, it can get a little frustrating. Everybody else is just waiting.

But, like a lot of party games, it supports drop in and drop out play fairly seamlessly, so we can’t complain about that.

So Andrew, what are we going to rate Venn, from The Op?

So just like our diagram, we’re going to give Venn 3 overlapping circles out of 5.

And that’s VENN, in a SNAP!

Find it on Amazon, at your local game store, or direct from The Op.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Venn from The Op for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?