The goal of Tic Tac Boom is simple: give the most words while respecting the letters and the rules, without the bomb exploding in your hands.
Content and Goal of the Game
Tic Tac Boom is a thinking game where you have to give words containing specific letters. These letters, marked on cards, must appear in the words that the players choose.
A Tic Tac Boom game contains:
- a special Tic Tac Boom dice
- 110 letter cards
- A bomb
2 to 12 players can play per game. This makes it one of the best board games for the family.
Before You Begin
Take the deck of letter cards and choose 13 of them. Shuffle them then place them in a pile; this lot constitutes the draw pile. Then place the bomb in front of the players.
The game is played over 13 rounds. Each round passes one card from the draw pile. Usually the youngest player starts the game.
Course of the Game
The first player draws the first card from the draw pile at the start of each round. The letters marked on this card are the letters of the round.
Then you will need to roll the dice. The dice has faces marked “Tic” “Tac” and “Boom” (the game title 😁).
- If the die lands on “Tic”, the letters mentioned on the card must be at the beginning of the word. For example, if the card says “ant” and the die says “Tic”, you can use words like “antenna”.
- If the die lands on “Tac”, the letters must be at the end of the word (same example with the letters “ant” we can say “plant”).
- If the die lands on “Boom”, the letters can be anywhere in the word (example with “ant”, we can choose a word like “slanted”)
Once the letters are defined and the die is rolled, the first starting player can set off the bomb. When a player finds a word that respects the rules, they pass the bomb to the next player, and so on.
The bomb has a varying countdown, and explodes when it ends. The player with the bomb in hand when it explodes keeps the letter card of the round. The winner of the game is the player who, after 13 rounds, has the fewest cards in their possession.
Some Important Rules
Playing Tic Tac Boom will require you to know some simple rules.
- Regarding letter cards, only the pronunciation counts, not the spelling. So you can use words like “scurry” and “colonel” if the card says “cur” letters.
- You may not use adjectives of words that have already been used.
- You may not use conjugated forms of verbs that have already been used.
- Proper nouns are forbidden.
- A word already used in a round by one player cannot be repeated in the same round.
- If a player uses a forbidden word, the other players must point it out. In this case, the latter keeps the bomb in hand until they finds a word deemed valid (if it explodes, too bad!)
- If a player uses a forbidden word but no other player points it out, they cannot not be punished even if other players find out later or they have already passed the bomb.