My game, Out of the Loop, is meant to invoke that feeling of when a group of people are talking about something, but you missed the starting context so you try to understand as the conversation goes on. To achieve this. in Out of the Loop, one player is left out of the conversation. The other players (the Cluers) secretly share a word, hint “cryptically” to each other, and choose a clue. The Guesser overhears everything and tries to figure out the secret word and what the others were even talking about.

Inspirations:

I often gravitate to simple games, since I feel they are the most impressive when they truly convey a message or experience, and that is what I tried to channel for this game. Games such as Marriage or many Mary Flanagan works, are so simple yet convey their experiences so effortlessly.

Rules:

Players:

• Minimum: 3 players
• Roles per round:
  • 1 Guesser
  • 2 or more Cluers
• As your group size increases, add more Cluers, but there is always exactly one Guesser.

Scoring:

• Earn points cooperatively as a team.
• Start at 3 points
• Reach 10 points & You all win!
• Drop to 0 points & You all lose
• Or, play without scores, if that is more fun for you group.

Setup:

• Choose a starting Guesser.
• All other players become Cluers for this round.
• Shuffle and pull one Word Card.

Playing:

1. Reveal the Secret Word

• The Guesser draws the top Word Card, placing it on their forehead, WITHOUT looking at it.
  • All Cluers can now see the secret word.
• Cluers silently read the word and begin to speak “cryptically”.
• Example secret word: Pig

2. Cluers Speak “Cryptically”

• Each Clue Giver thinks of one descriptive word related to the secret word. BUT they cannot say this clue out loud yet, because the Guesser is listening.
• Instead, each Cluer gives the group a cryptic hint about their clue, for example:
  • “My word starts with B and ends in N.” (intending bacon)
  • “Mine starts with P and ends with K.” (maybe pork… or pink)
• Cluers must follow these rules:
  • They may NOT reveal their full clue outright.
  • They must NOT say anything that contains or spoils the secret word.
  • Their hint should be clear only to the other Cluers, not the Guesser.
  • All discussions happen out loud, the Guesser listens and tries to understand.

3. The Group Chooses One Clue:

• After everyone presents their cryptic hint, the Cluers discuss (still publicly) and agree on one of the intended clue words to say out loud.
• Only the chosen word will be spoken directly.
• Example: The group picks Joe’s intended clue word: “bacon.”
• This is the only clue the Guesser receives.

4. The Guesser Makes One Guess

• The Guesser hears the chosen clue (e.g., “bacon”) and gets exactly one guess at the hidden word.
• The group scores a point if the guesser got it right and loses a point if the guesser gets it wrong!

5. Rotate Roles

• After scoring, the Guesser passes the forehead card to the center, and the next player clockwise becomes the new Guesser.
• Start a new round with a fresh card.

Testing:

I tested this game in class twice, with success and very minimal feedback, so I didn’t change much. Over the thanksgiving break, I tested it again and added the rule of putting the card on your forehead (to increase the feeling of being left out) and added the scoring (because originally there was no scoring mechanic).

Photo Finish works like this:

Objective: find the people/items and take a picture with your phone faster than the other players.

Photo Finish was an game inspired by outside street-interventions turned into a searching game using photos and phones. Similar to a lot of public interventions people will have to intervene in a public place while playing this game in the wild.

How to Play

For 2 or more players and optionally: 1 game master to run generators and verify photos.

Each round, the GM announces a challenge based on the setting
(Should be usually played outside, but can be played anywhere):

Object Hunt: If there are not a lot of people outside

• Go to: randomwordgenerator.com/letter.php
• Find an object in the world that starts with the generated letter.
• Take a picture of it as proof.
• The first person to send or show their photo wins.
• No photos of yourself, your own items, or the other players.
• If everyone’s stuck, the GM may draw a new letter.

People Hunt: if there are

• To randomize the challenge: Google “pick a number from 1 to 50.”
• Match that number to Photo Finish traits list. (Wearing a hat, etc.)
• Find a person who fits that trait and ask politely before taking a photo of or with them.
• The first photo submitted wins.

Scoring
Each round’s winner earns 1 point.
First to reach 5 or 10 points wins overall.

Trial Run

I played as the GM with 3 other players. We started with some (6) rounds of Object Hunt, and then two rounds of People Hunt.

• Round 1: H – players found hand and husky
• Round 2: K – players couldn’t find anything starting with K – I then ruled you can make players return if they cant find anything
• Round 3: R – players found ring and recycling bin – I then ruled that you cannot use anything on your body / you own
• Round 4: B – players found bench and bin
• Round 5: L – players found leaves
• Round 6: A – players found art
• Round 7: Find someone… wearing a brand logo on their clothing – players took picture of each other’s shirts – ruled you can’t take pictures of each other
• Round 8: Find someone… wearing a uniform – players found Northeastern workers

Pieces in Pieces is an art game about creating a new Dada-esque collage out of the world’s most famous paintings. Three players are each given a different tool (scissors, Sharpies, or glue sticks) and must cooperate to create a new piece in 10 minutes.

By Yonatan Catran

Setup

• I printed out 13 of the most famous and recognizable paintings and also their titles:
  • The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (1889)
  • Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh (1888)
  • Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer (1665)
  • The Kiss by Gustav Klimt (1907-1908)
  • Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David (1801)
  • Water Lily Pond by Claude Monet (1899)
  • The Scream by Edvard Munch (1893)
  • Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (1503-1505)
  • The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (1485–1486)
  • Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich (1818)
  • The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí (1931)
  • American Gothic by Grant Wood (1930)
  • Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci (1489–1491)
• I brought a bigger paper to use as a canvas (in the first test, I did not have this, so you’ll see the result is smaller).
• I also brought the tools: a pair of scissors, two glue sticks, Sharpies, and pens.
• Each player picks one of the items that they could ONLY use for the 10 minutes (except the pens, which everyone can use)
• Then, start the timer and let the players create their collage.

Pictures

First Iteration (Up ^), Second Iteration (Right >).

Inspirations

The first piece that drew me to this idea was Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q., which was him drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa, basically vandalizing the world’s most famous painting. So I extended that to the many Dada collages that were made, but for my game they would use other famous paintings and create a Duchamp-style collage. I added the titles as well as the paintings because I was hoping the players would reorder the words to say less nice things and cut up the paintings in out-of-the-box ways.

My score, called “Winner Loser Piece,” is built on the idea of how quickly games change when you change the winning (or losing) conditions. In this score, players are asked to play a simple game (unless reading the last line, in which a different piece with any game at all is proposed). To win this game, however, you need to lose because of the second line of the score, which says that losing actually is winning. This is what makes the score interesting to me, because would winning the game itself be a condition that should be reversed? Would line 2 of the score cancel itself out if taken literally to the extremes? And what does winning in these low-stake games really mean? That is why the end condition of the score is so open, so that everyone could interpret those questions how they like.

Part of a thumb war game during the score.

Ending of a tic tac toe board when both players are trying to lose.

Part of a rock paper scissors game during the score.

This score was inspired by the simpler pieces in Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit, which I feel have the most impact (and are the most impressive) if they are small and efficient in what they try to convey. This idea came to mind when I was playing “rock paper scissors minus one” with my younger sister, and we kept struggling to figure out who won. This inspired me to think, what if we were trying to lose in that game? How would our strategies change? Most likely we would try to tie again and again, but if we were trying to make only one of us win by losing, we wouldn’t do that. That situation in the style of Yoko Ono inspired this piece.

– Yonatan Catran