Word Game

Every word counts, so focus and think carefully about your choices.

In the brain-teasing co-operative game Sides, you have to weigh your options and wisely choose your words.

The objective of the game is simple: Each round, help two detectives find a mystery word. To do so, the other players (the witnesses) give detectives a one-word clue that starts with the letter at either end of the letter-card line.

The detectives then jointly offer an answer, and if they found the solution, two other players become the detectives and a new word is uncovered; if not, the witness players suggest a new clue with a new letter card. The fewer the clues used and the more words guessed, the higher the score. Will you beat the world record?

13 Words is a co-operative idea-association party game in which the team aims for the highest score possible.

To set up, lay out twelve double-sided word cards on the perimeter of the game board, then place a word card in the center of the board. This round's Captain wants to find the most obvious link between this central word and one of the outer words. The Captain indicates their choice on their answer wheel, and all other players try to guess the Captain's choice. Each player who guesses correctly wins a star, and the Captain collects a star as long as at least one player earned a star this round.

For the next round, the player to the Captain's left becomes the new Captain. They flip over the word card matching the previous Captain's choice, place it in the center of the game board, then everyone guesses how the new Captain will link this newly revealed word to one of the remaining words on the perimeter.

After eleven rounds, the game ends, and players tally their stars to determine the success level of the team. The best possible score is 11 times the number of players. How did you do?

Fiction is a Wordle-inspired game of deception. One player is the Lie-brarian and will choose a secret word from a classic work of literature. The other players will, as a team, use logic and literacy to deduce the secret word as quickly as possible.

Players have ten guesses and two ten-minute time periods to deduce the secret word, but beware! The Lie-brarian's clues will always contain exactly one lie. The Guessers win if they figure out the word; the Lie-brarian wins if the time or number of guesses runs out.

The Illiterati are an evil secret organization that has taken over the world. Your job as a member of the League of Librarians is to save the world's books — one word at a time.

Illiterati is a real-time, co-operative word game in which players work together to form words and bind books. Each player starts the game with five letter tiles and a red torched book that shows a condition that player must achieve to restore that book, e.g. using 8+ tiles with at least 3 green symbols, create words that are all animals. A library of three random tiles is placed in the center of the table. The game takes place in three-minute rounds, and before the round begins each player draw seven letter tiles from the draw bag.

Once the countdown begins, players can talk and trade letters as much as they want with one another and the library to try to achieve their goal. Once time ends, if the library contains too many letters — and this threshold is based on your difficulty level — then you trigger a burn event. Flip all of these letters face down, then remove one of them from the game, then discard excess letters to the discard bag. If you burn too many letters, you lose the game. If you didn't burn any letters and you've completed your goal, flip your red book face down and draw a blue waterlogged book to give yourself a new goal.

At the end of the round, draw an illiterati villain card and resolve its effect. If you've drawn this villain previously — and the deck contains five copies of five villains — then all of the previous effects from this villain also resolve in a chain attack from newest to oldest. Villain attacks often strip letters from words, which means you'll need to create new words with what's left during the next round to avoid burning another letter.

Once all players have completed two books — or three or four depending on your difficulty level — draw one more book, the Final Chapter, with all players needing to complete this challenge in the same round, e.g., using 12+ tiles, create words in which all of your vowels are the same color. If all players meet this goal during the same round, you win; if even one person fails, another villain attacks, then you draw new tiles to start another round. You can discard and redraw up to seven tiles at the start of a round, but you must draw a second illiterati villain card that round — and if the villain deck runs out, you lose.

Players are given a list of three items and must determine the common bond. Landing on another pawn brings up a challenge situation, where the winner stays put and the loser moves back. The first team to bring their three pawns around the triangles wins.