Make Some Noise in Cooperative Party Game Sound Box!

Was that a swimming pool you heard? Or the sound of a superhero fight? With only sounds to go off of, the guesser must deduce which card’s sound each player was trying to make!

Sound Box is a party game for 4-7 players, published by Horrible Guild. So how does it play?

Gameplay

The game board has two sides. The left side is numbered 1-10. The right side is numbered 11-20 and features the soundtrack tracker. At the start of the game, a card is dealt to each of the 1-10 spaces. Each card lists some kind of object or action that would make some type of noise such as a bowling alley or rewinding.

Each round a different player is the guesser. The guesser first studies all the cards on the board and then puts on the glasses that cover his eyes. If playing with 6-7 players, one person is also the recorder and puts on the recorder glasses (the role of recorder also rotates each round). All the other players are the sound makers, and each one draws a number token, which indicates which of the cards is their card for the round. The 13-second sand timer is started, and each of the sound makers spends that time making the sound they believe best reflects their card.

After the timer runs out, all sound makers stop and the guesser can remove his glasses. If playing with the recorder, he does not remove his glasses, nor may he speak to the guesser at this point, but instead tries to reproduce as many of the sounds that he remembers hearing. The guesser picks cards, one at a time, whose sounds he believes he heard being made. For each card he correctly identifies, that card is removed from the board. If the guesser selects a card whose sound was not in fact being made, the guessing immediately ends. Each sound maker whose card still has not been guessed reveals his number token. Each number token has 1-3 hearts on it. This is how many spaces players move down the heartbreak tracker for that player’s card not being guessed.

Meanwhile, the soundtrack token moves up its track for each card that was correctly guessed. Moving up this track unlocks new card spaces, which means there will be more cards to guess from on future rounds. There are also two double-sound tokens on this track. Each time players reach one of these, they get assigned to a player each round. That player will have two sound cards for that round and must try to get the guesser to figure out both of them. There are certain spaces on the heartbreak tracker that, once reached, allow players to discard these double-sound tokens.

If players reach the end of the heartbreak tracker, they lose the game. If players reach the end of the soundtrack tracker, they win the game.

Review

With its reliance on sound effects, Sound Box is a unique party game. If you’ve ever seen the improv skit where people attempt to make sound effects for a scene, you already know that making the perfect sound to represent something can be equal parts hard and hilarious. It’s so much fun to try and decide what sounds to make for a witch’s cauldron or a superhero fight, and the chaos as everyone makes their noises at the same time just adds to the enjoyment of it all.

The role of recorder isn’t as fun as the other two parts players can have, although it’s quite helpful for the guesser to have a second pair of ears and memory. 13 seconds go by quickly, and when everyone is making noises at you at the same time, it can be easy to forget one.

There is a great escalation to the game as more and more cards get added the closer players get to victory. There is some luck involved in how many points are lost for an incorrect guess, but this can leave things unpredictable in an enjoyable way, as the guesser often doesn't know if this could be the last round or not.

Kid-friendly cards are marked with a star so that players can remove the more adult or difficult ones as needed. None of the cards are inherently higher than a PG level, although with certain groups a few could, in theory, get a bit risqué. But it’s still nice to be able to play with the less complex ones as needed.

This is a noisy, raucous party game, with a concept that sets it apart from other cooperative party games. All players are kept involved throughout the game, even across the higher player counts. There are lots of cards included, with a wide range of objects and prompts, a nice difficulty range, and some that are extra fun to try to tackle!

Pros: Easy to sort out non-family-friendly cards, solid escalation, some of the prompts are really fun to try to make sounds for

Cons: The recorder role isn’t quite as fun as the other two roles

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.