Described by the publishers (Hex Mad Games) as 'a word making and guessing party game for filthy people', you'd be forgiven for expecting Curse Words to be an exercise in unadulterated vulgarity. You'd be wrong. For sure, it uses 'prompt' cards that are either obviously NSFW (Not Safe For Work) or likely to trigger responses that are NSFW, but at its core Curse Words is a Scrabble-type word construction game where players can score additional points by guessing each other's words before they are fully revealed.
The game comprises a deck of letter cards plus a smaller deck of 'prompt' cards. Some of these are capable of innocent interpretation but the majority are risqué. Curse Words comes with 'standard' and 'party mode' rules. The latter are the simplest. In 'party mode', you just deal eight letter cards face down to each of the players along with two prompt cards. Players all simultaneously make a word using the letters; anyone can discard letters to draw new ones but you draw back one card less than you discarded. Players then place their cards face down in front of them in order and take turns doing a slow reveal where letters are flipped one at a time with a five-second interval between each letter: like the overextended pause habitually used by TV presenters when announcing competition winners. The other players are trying to guess the word, and if and when any guess it correctly they win a point (the reverse of the prompt cards are used as points). Then when all of the words are revealed, players award another points card to the player whose word is the funniest. As you might guess, the prompts don't demand that your word is rude or offensive but they point you and the guessers in that direction, and you'll be more likely to be judged the funniest if you follow a prompt to its most vulgar conclusion.
The 'standard' game is similar except that instead of just being dealt eight cards, players start with a round of card drafting: you keep two cards and pass the other cards to your neighbour. In this version, you'll be scoring the points value of each letter you use: these range from 0 for wild cards, 1 for common frequency letters (most vowels, N, R, S, T) rising to 5 for the hardest to use letters (J, Q, X, Z). The rules are also slightly stricter on the words you can create: they can be acronyms, proper nouns, slang or hyphenated but they cannot be 'made up' words; in 'party mode' invented words are allowed.
Tho' we're generally fans of card drafting in games, the card drafting option in Curse Words didn't seem to add much to the game. It means players have some clues as to the letters other players have, which may help them with their guesses, but for us the more sluggish start to each round outweighed any potential card drafting benefits.
We feared that totting up the points values for the letters in words might push some players to game Curse Words by disregarding the prompt cards altogether and just go for maximising your word's points value. That strategy doesn't work, however, because your words are bound mostly to be using letters that score only 1 or maybe 2 points apiece and the cards you get for being selected as the funniest word are all worth 3 points. Best then not to ignore your prompt cards: you'll do better with a lower scoring word that prompts a few titters than a straightlaced word that tots up more points but leaves other players unamused.
With Curse Words then, Ian James has designed a party game that combines the risqué storytelling element of games like Funemployed (IronWall Games/Mattel) with more conventional word games. And it works! The game notionally takes 3-10 players but we reckon the sweet spot is around 6-8. Just be sure, as with any NSFW game, that you're only playing with suitably like-minded, broad-minded players.