Please note this product was independently purchased, and this review is neither endorsed nor paid for by Story Machine Games.
One of my hobbies outside of language learning is games. Whether video, board, or card, I’ve always enjoyed anything that involves strategy, competition, or communication.
A few months ago, I pre-ordered Rosetta: The Lost Language on Kickstarter, and received it in December. I recently sat down with a friend to play-test the game, to see how it is both as a game and as a linguistic exercise. Here are some of my initial thoughts after a few rounds.
In Rosetta, one player is the Author, or the last person of a community or civilization, who is trying to help one to three Experts, or linguists, decipher their language. At the beginning of the game, an inscription, or word in the lost language, and a location card are drawn at random. With this information, the Author decides on the meaning of the inscription.
Initial game setup
The location is used to help give context to the Experts to help them decipher meaning. The Experts work together to give the Author a guess, or a word in English they think the inscription is. If the guess is incorrect, the author draws the meaning of the word in their lost language. After a certain amount of guesses, the Experts are also able to use abilities to get further hints from the Author. When the Authors run out of guesses, or guess correctly, the game is over.
An incorrect guess (the inscription was “Snake charmer”) from the Expert, with a new inscription drawn by the Author.
Overall, the game was a light, simple, and most importantly fun experience. We both were able to learn the game in less than 15 minutes, and although my Expert did not correctly guess the word, he was able to get closer and closer as time went on. In many ways, the game reminded me as a more advanced version of Pictionary, as the Author was mostly giving visual clues, but was also able to create context with the location, or using some of the symbols in the inscription in other words to help provide clues.
I can imagine the game would be more fun with more Experts, as it would help create a healthy debate, or individual experts would be able to play up their strengths, such as linguistic ability, visual acuity, etc. It still works well as a 2-player game, but I would recommend 3 or more to truly get a full experience. One other potential issue is the game requires quite a bit of initial creativity, if your Author is having trouble coming up with a meaning for the inscription, it may accidentally make the game far too hard or far too easy.
With that said, I can highly recommend this game for anyone looking for a light, easy party game that could even potentially be played online with friends. While being a linguist or playing with other language enthusiasts helps to a point, it is a simple enough game to be enjoyed by nearly anyone who enjoys deduction and investigation.