Err..? The Big Word Game in a Small Box

Guess the word from its clues and build the board as you play. Thousands of definitions in a free app, billions of possible boards.
 

Err..? is a word game you build as you play. Guess a word from its clues, score between one and four points depending on how many you need, then lay out that many board squares and move. No two games ever look the same, because no two boards ever are. It fits in a box the size of your fist, and the definitions live in a free app so there's nothing to shuffle, print or lose.

Story

Err..? It started life in Spain in the late 1980s under a different name. It made the final ten out of thousands of submissions at Waddingtons, then sold through Hamleys, John Lewis and Barnes & Noble while Mattel tested it across multiple languages and territories.

Production stopped in 2001. Twenty-five years later, with an app doing the job that used to take a stack of cards, we're bringing it back.

Whats in the box

Err..? Fits in a coat pocket and opens out across the whole table.

• A full board that builds itself. Modular squares you lay as you play. The board grows in the direction the players take it.
• A free companion app. Thousands of words and definitions, updated over time. No cards to lose, no dictionary to argue over.
• Strategic squares. Seven game-changing squares hiding in the deck, waiting to wreck someone's afternoon.
• 2– 6 players. 20–40 minutes. Ages 9+.  These are our recommendations; feel free to try with more players.

How to play

Board Squares

Extreme Squares

Extreme Cards !!!!

Why there's an App

The original game shipped with a thick stack of definition cards. Play it enough times, and you'd see them all.
The app removes that ceiling. Thousands of words now, more added over time, difficulty that scales, and nothing to lose down the back of the sofa. It's free, it works on iOS and Android, and one phone runs the game for the whole table.
The box stays small. The game stays big.

Rewards

The Team

Mike - Original Err.?-itect - Conceived the game and has carried it around since the 1980s.

Gurminder - Chief Everything Officer - Brought it back to life, ran the socials, and pulled the Kickstarter and the team together.

Jonny - Chief Pixel Pusher - Visual design. Every square, box and icon you're looking at.

Spread the word

You don't have to pledge to help. Sharing the campaign is worth more to us than almost anything else at this stage.

Instagram: @err.game
TikTok: @errthegame
Web: errgame.com
 

Risks and Challenges

This isn't a first attempt at making this game. Err..? predecessor - Word Blind has been manufactured and sold at retail before, through Hamleys, John Lewis and Barnes & Noble, so the physical product is proven and the tooling questions are largely answered. The app is built and functional.

The realistic risks are the ones every board game campaign faces. Manufacturing timelines can move, particularly on the wooden Collector's Edition, which is a smaller specialist run. Shipping costs and customs handling have been volatile, and while we've priced in headroom, significant changes could compress our margins — they will not change what we send you.

With the game fully developed and production/distribution centres ready, we are feeling confident. If anything slips, you'll hear it from us in an update before you hear it anywhere else, including the parts that aren't going well. 

The Full Story 

It started with a packaging problem

I came up with this game in Spain in the late 1980s. It was called Wordblind then. The idea was simple enough — guess a word from its definitions — but I wanted a board, and a board meant a big box, and a big box meant a price nobody wanted to pay.

I spent months on that problem. In the end I did the only thing left: I cut the board up. Twenty-odd squares that stacked into something the size of a fist.

And then the game changed. Because if the players are laying the board as they go, the board is different every single time. The compromise turned out to be the best idea.

Waddingtons, and what came after

I sent it to Waddingtons. Out of thousands of submissions that year, it made the final ten, but was too expensive.

What followed still doesn't feel real. Hamleys. John Lewis. Barnes & Noble in the States. Mattel took it into testing across 8 languages and 8 territories. We were on stands at Toy Fair, watching buyers pick up a small orange box and go quiet while they worked out what it did.

2001

Then September 11th happened, and everything stopped. In the uncertainty that followed, Mattel pulled out of overseas investment entirely — and we were overseas investment. The boxes went into storage and stayed there.

Why now

The thing that always limited this game was the cards. A finite stack, and once you'd been through it, you'd been through it.

That problem doesn't exist anymore. Gurminder Bhogal helped me rebuild and worked on the gaming logic, around an app that holds thousands of words and keeps growing. Jonny redrew the whole thing from scratch. 

It's a small box. It's still a very big game. I'd like to get it back on tables.

— Mike Willis