It’s hard to watch your mouth when no one can understand what you’re saying!
In Watch Ya Mouth Ultimate, a game from Buffalo Games made for ages 8 and up, three to 10 players have to work hard to get their teammates to understand them, and they look pretty funny while doing so.
Players take turns wearing a plastic mouth expander that pulls their gums from their teeth, similar to something you’d wear at the dentist. This set comes with both small and large mouth pieces, so younger players can play comfortably. Be sure to keep hygiene in mind while you play—the guards should be washed before first use and after each use. They are dishwasher safe for easy cleaning. The set includes 10 mouthpieces (six large, four small) so players can each have their own for the game’s duration.
Players split into two teams, and following the tradition of previous Watch Ya Mouth games, the player who has gone the longest without brushing his or her teeth goes first.
When a player takes his or her turn as “reader,” he or she inserts the mouth piece, flips the timer, and reads what is written on the game card. The player’s teammates must correctly guess as many cards as possible before the timer runs out. This may not seem too challenging, but the mouthpiece makes it difficult to understand what the reader is saying (and so does all of the laughter that is guaranteed to follow!)
Instead of simply including phrases, however, this Ultimate edition of the game shakes things up with four different types of cards: Ultimate, Rhyme Time, Pop Culture, and Head-to-Head.
Ultimate cards are incredibly challenging phrases (such as “The fair is a veritable smorgasbord” and “Bodacious bouncing baby boys”) that were submitted by members of the public. Rhyme Time cards, as their name suggests, include rhyming phrases such as “Old mother hubbard went to the cupboard” or “Bob’s job is to swab the thingamabob.” The Pop Culture cards may be the most fun, and possibly the easiest because they often make more sense. With cards such as “Backstreet Boys or *NSYNC?” and “ Wakanda forever salute,” they draw heavily on ‘90s and 2000s nostalgia but also include modern references.
The Head-to-Head cards pause the round and add a twist to the game. The card lists three very difficult words (such as mumbly, believe, muffler, or bumpkin), and the player who drew the card picks one of the words and challenges a member of the opposing team. The reader shows the chosen word to his or her opponent, and then the two players race to get their teammates to correctly guess the word first. If the reader wins, his or her team gets a point and the reader resumes his or her round until the timer runs out. If the opposing team wins, however, they get the point and gameplay switches to that team.
Some of the cards may be tricky, but there are no skips allowed in this ultimate showdown! The only cards players can skip are the bonus cards, which are worth two points.
The game length will vary based on the number of players, as the game technically ends after each player takes a turn as reader. Teams tally up their points (one for each card correctly guessed, two for each bonus card) and the team with the most points wins.
That being said, these mouth pieces and cards can be just as much fun for less structured play. For example, two players can take turns reading cards to each other while wearing the mouthpieces — it may not be as competitive, but there will be plenty of laughter (and drool).
With 200 cards, the game provides plenty of playtime before the cards start getting familiar. And for even more fun, there is also a Watch Ya Mouth app, which comes with more than 3,000 additional phrases. Basically, the fun never stops!
