Reuse, Reuse, Reuse

A performance game from Equinox 54 - Reuse, Reuse, Reuse,  by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield).

The room is divided into two teams -- the blue-green team and the yellow-green team.  In each round, the participants consist of two cluers and two guessers, one of each from each team.

The game requires a computer screen that can be seen by all; we used a projector.  The game is on a web page here, but once the page has loaded in your browser, the game can be played while offline as no further internet access is required.

The guessers stand with their backs to the projector screen.  The cluers and the audience can see the screen.  In each round, there is a "bank" of 4-6 letters, shown in the upper-right corner of the screen; the bank letters should also be copied to a small whiteboard or something, to be visible by the guessers.  Each round has nine answer words.  All answer words are made up of letters from the bank, used at least once each, and no other letters.

Clues must not contain any of the answer words or alternate forms of them, or "rhymes with", etc.  Many of the answer words are not in the simplest forms of the words, and the game leader should be fairly strict about guessers saying the correct form of the word.

The game leader begins the round, revealing the nine answer words.  A timer begins and the page background changes color to indicate whose turn it is to clue.  Rounds alternate between blue-green and yellow-green getting to go first.

The cluer from the blue-green team, say, picks any of the nine words and gives a clue.  If the blue-green guesser gets the word (or indeed, any of the current answer words, whether intended for the clue given or not), then that word is awarded to the blue-green team, and the timer stops.  Play goes to the other team, and a new timer begins.  If the timer runs out, no word is awarded and play goes to the other team with a fresh timer.

Play continues in this way until all nine words have been guessed correctly.  New cluers and guessers then step up, the game leader advances to the next round, writes the new bank on the whiteboard, and it all begins again.

Round 0 is intended as a sample round used to explain the mechanics.  Then there are 18 rounds that can be played.

Additional notes for game leader:

Whenever the background is grey, pressing "space" will give play to the next team and start the timer.  No sound is made when time runs out, game leader should watch the timer and call out "time" when it reaches 0.  Of course, at game leader's discretion, a few extra seconds can be given to let the guesser complete their guess.

Clicking a word while the background is blue-green or yellow-green will award that word to the current team, stop the timer, and flip to a grey background.  Normally, the game leader should immediately then press "space" to give play to the other team.  In case of an error (clicking on the wrong word, say, or due to giving the guesser a little extra time after the timer ran out), clicking any word while background is grey will cycle through the two team colors, white (still available to be guessed), and grey (e.g. if for some reason the word should be disqualified), so just keep clicking until you get what you need.

Pressing left- and right-arrow (cursor keys on the keyboard) will move back and forward through rounds 0 through 18.

Pressing plus and minus will increase and decrease the timer time limit.  10 seconds seemed to work fine, but if that's too hard or easy, you could adjust.  Also note that if you press command-plus and command-minus to adjust the font size (which may be necessary if the projector is low resolution), then the time limit will have adjusted as well; just press minus or plus to get it back to 10.  The current timer length is shown when the answer words are hidden before a round begins; otherwise pressing plus and minus will change what the timer will be next time it starts although you can't see what you're changing.  So best to just change it between rounds.

Click here to play.