Matthew BaileyMessage in a Bottle is a fun word game that reminds me a little bit of Boggle, but with a much lower entry point, much faster gameplay, and it’s also very playable with a mixed age and ability group. It comes in a really cool bottle, which we’ll talk about when we get to components. Essentially, you remove everything from the bottle, place the dice back inside, and give each player one diamond to start with.
You then shake the letters inside the bottle and place it down on the table so everyone can clearly see what dice are there. This starts the round, and everyone needs to look at which letters the dice are showing and rush to be the first person to name a word that contains all the letters.
First and foremost, I really like this idea. Normally, in these kinds of games, you have to make a word using the letters, but here you just have to think of a word that contains them. It means you get to play around with longer words than you’d typically use in a middling game of Scrabble, which I really liked. It was a great start and really enjoyable.
If a player messes up and suggests a word that either doesn’t exist or isn’t spelt correctly, they lose a diamond. When we played this with the boys, we made it so that they just sat out the round rather than losing a diamond — it felt a bit kinder, and it worked just as well.
Once a correct word is called, that player gets a diamond, and the game starts over. The game ends when one player collects their eighth diamond, and they are declared the winner. It’s quick, fast, and works really nicely.
What’s interesting is that there are lots of alternative rules that extend the longevity of the game and add variety.
Firstly, there’s the “No Word” rule. If a player believes there are no valid words containing the letters, they can call out “No Word” and start a ten-second countdown aloud. If no one else can suggest a word in that time, the player who called it out gains a diamond. However, if another player does manage to say a word, the player who called “No Word” loses a diamond. This rule works well but can be abused, as ten seconds is quite short, and thinking under pressure can be stressful. Still, I think it’s a nice addition.
Next is the optional shorter word rule, where if someone calls out a seven-letter word, a ten-second countdown starts, allowing other players to suggest shorter words that also contain all the required letters. Whoever comes up with the shortest valid word wins the round. This didn’t work so well when playing with the kids, but I think it would be great in an adult group.
The main extra, though, is the easy game mode, which is brilliant when playing with younger children. In this mode, you can remove the dark blue dice — these tend to have the higher-value Scrabble letters, making word creation more difficult. We ended up house-ruling it so that the kids didn’t have to use the blue dice, but the adults did. This worked really well, levelling the playing field while still allowing everyone to play together. Even though it’s a house rule, it became our favourite way to play.
Components are super cool. The bottle that the game comes in is awesome — it’s corked, everything fits nicely inside, and it all works really well. But there’s one slight issue we encountered repeatedly: the bottle itself. Because it’s curved, when you’re looking at the dice inside, some of them can appear warped depending on your viewing angle. There were a few times when one of us misread a letter entirely due to this distortion. It also meant that when the bottle was slammed down on the table, players were often scrambling to get a clear view of the dice, and sometimes someone had already called out a word before another player had even seen all the letters.
You could play the game using a dice tray instead, which would solve this issue, but that takes away from the tactile, fun aspect of using the bottle. It’s a bit of a shame because I’m not sure how to fix this without losing the charm of the bottle. Maybe a less curved design? But that might also detract from the visual appeal.
Overall, I really liked Message in a Bottle. Word games are an absolute favourite of mine, and this is one that works brilliantly with both adults and kids. Despite the issue with the bottle, if you’re a family who loves word games and you’re after something like Scrabble or Boggle, but faster and more of a party game, this is definitely worth considering.
Disclaimer: “Message in a Bottle” was kindly provided by “Alley Cat Games” for the purpose of review. Caezar Al-Jassar from Alley Cat Games is an active member of our community. Our thoughts and opinions are, however, our own.
