Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
At most of my game nights, I try to start the evening with a lighter game that can be taught, played, and discussed in about 30 minutes. On a recent night with my Wednesday crew (a group that focuses on a mix of lighter fare and goes back 10+ years in Chicago), I wanted to whip out Caution Signs, the new party game from Danielle Reynolds and Scott Brady, published by Wacky Wizard Games.
To get ready, I unleashed this game on my two kids, ages 10 and 8. The Bell household is a big fan of the game MonsDRAWsity (2020, Bread & Circuses), so any chance to draw silly pictures under duress is a dream come true for the kids.
That’s right, Caution Signs is a game where you’ve got to draw silly pictures. Using a two-word prompt on triangle-shaped cards from both the Caution deck and the Signs deck, players have 20 seconds to draw an image of their weird combination of words to come up with an image that helps “The Guesser.” Once the clock stops, all players place their words in a face-down pile then add two more words from each deck into the scrum, in order to possibly confuse the Guesser as they try to line up the actual words with the pictures drawn by players.
If the Guesser aligns the right two words, both the artist and the Guesser score points. If one of the words matches up with a picture, only the artist can score. (Zeros all around? Zero points all around.)
The Caution words are usually a verb or an adjective. The Signs words are usually a noun or proper name. Some recent examples: Drowning Dinosaur. Disco Fire Fighter. Trashy Farmer. Grumpy Gorilla.
The words are not too bad, but the images they create are usually magic. That means that everyone who has joined us for Caution Signs has enjoyed themselves.
Lower, Not Higher?
I’ve played Caution Signs eight times—three times with three players (the minimum player count), twice with four, twice with six, and once with nine (the maximum player count). I think I will stick with doing future plays in the lower half of the player count range because we found the nine-player game to be a bit too chaotic.
For that last point, as a person who usually prefers chaos, let me explain. Trying to decipher the meaning of eight other players’ “artistic talent” with a mess of 20 total words wasn’t the best. It also meant that the rounds ran long—the game’s instructions even suggest giving the Guesser a three-minute time limit—and if you want to give each of the nine players a chance to be the Guesser, that’s a game that might run way long in the wrong hands.
My eight-year-old was the first Guesser in that nine-player game, and it was admittedly comic gold for me to watch his reaction when he realized he needed to sort through 10 Caution words and 10 Signs words to match up with eight of the worst drawings in human history. He didn’t seem to have as much fun as I did, and I think this could occasionally be overwhelming for a player.
One negative did pop up during our fifth review play, a three-player game with my wife and eight-year-old son. I was the Guesser for our final round, and I had a lead—six points to three. I realized that it would be better for me to get both drawings of my opponents wrong, which would score zero for everyone in that round, securing a victory.
I’m not sure this is a flaw—this is meant to be a party game, so “winning” falls all the way to the bottom of my personal to-do list—but we all agreed that in the wrong hands of an overly competitive person, they might try to tank just to secure a win. I’m torn on my feelings on this, because scores are usually going to be close in Caution Signs at the lowest player counts. If Reynolds and Brady included a score tracker, that means competition is important and there’s going to be a winner, so your mileage may vary on where this part lands.
That was an edge case. The only consistent flaw I found with Caution Signs was the sheer lack of imaginative words in the box. The word “drowning” came up three times in my games. Priest kept showing up. There are a lot of animal cards; I myself had “Porcupine” in back-to-back games.
Even when you are shuffling a lot of words, I think you would use most of the words in a nine-player, one-round game…so even playing a second game with nine players would lead to a minor problem with recycling.
Otherwise, Caution Signs has been an absolute blast. The box has been living on the edge of my kitchen counter for a couple weeks because the kids can’t stop playing it. My wife and I are having fun and some of the pictures we’ve collectively drawn have already become instant classics in my household. If you need a fun party game, give Caution Signs a look!
Caution Signs details
- Designer: Danielle Reynolds, Scott Brady
- Artists: N/A
- Publishers: Wacky Wizard Games
- Release Date: 2024
- Player count : 3 - 9
- Age range : 8+
- Time range : 20 - 30 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Drawing, Player Judge, Real-Time
- BGG Geek Rating: 7.40543 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 3.5.
- More articles about Caution Signs.
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