Librarians aren’t classically considered the loud type, but we found a squad of very willing ones to test drive “Really Loud Librarians,” a hilarious word association board game from the company that brought you Exploding Kittens. Spoiler alert: we had FUN!

The game is available for $20 both online through the company and Target. So I swung by the toy section on my weekly grocery run to pick one up.

The box contains a game board, pieces, category cards, and a timer. It looks very snazzy and I absolutely love the font the designers used. Very librarily.

The object of the game is to split into two teams (Team Gertrude Birdwhistle and Team Wilfred Dankworth, respectfully). Taking turns, each team draws a category card and circles the board until the timer runs out, shouting words that fit in that certain category, all of which must start with the matching letter on the game board. An example catagory would be “Desserts,” and the words as you progress around the board might be chocolate, flan, licorice, pie, sundae, tart, etc. The first team to reach 12 points wins.

Really Loud Librarians is for ages 8+ and two or more people can play at a time. So we rounded up some talented Princeton University librarians. We put on our toughest game faces, choose our field names, and got ready to (very) competitively categorize things.

Well, this was a total blast. It’s amazing how your mind can go blank when the timer is running out and you’re trying to think of a kitchen appliance that starts with “C.” There was a lot of laughter, cheering, good-natured ribbing, suspenseful moments, and yes…it got LOUD.

Some of the card categories are hard though! One team might get “Colors,” and then the next gets “Phone Apps.” That’s a tough category! You’ll need to access the board during your turn, so make sure to play on a small to mid-size table. It also gets a little difficult to keep track of your laps, so we suggest one person act as MC to count laps, turn the timer, and step in to decide whether what you shouted out is a qualifying word.

Also…and this might just be us…but whoever played Team Wilfred always won. Probably a fluke, but if you’re reading this and taking the game to a party, it might just give you an magical edge.

Really Loud Librarians was fun, lively, easy to play, and just an all around good time. Highly recommended!

Special thanks to librarians Neggin Keshavarzian, Beth Kushner, Hilary Murusmith, and Amy Vo for lending their extraordinary word-smithing abilities!