Un-Phased

Un-Phased, a small group performance game from Equinox 65, by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)

A cluing and guessing game for groups of 6-8 or so, to be played in three phases. Cluing gets easier in each progressive phase.

With six players: for each round, choose one player to be the guesser; the other five are cluers. Each cluer gets a different constraint sheet. The round will consist of three 30-second phases; each sheet specifies a constraint for each of the three phases. Between rounds, you can shuffle and/or flip over the constraint sheets however you like.

To begin the round, the guesser draws an answer card and holds it up so the cluers can all see it (but the guesser themself cannot see it). Start the timer for Phase One. Cluers give clues in any order, each limited by their own Phase One constraint, which limits their clues to words that begin with one specific letter. After 30 seconds, start the timer over for Phase Two, and now each cluer has one or two more starting letters available for their clue words. Finally, start the timer again for Phase Three, and now each cluer has a total of five starting letters available – in this phase, every letter but "X" is available to some cluer.

Any time the guesser correctly guesses their word, they draw another answer card, and the cluers continue cluing according to the constraints of the current phase. Early on, if you're stuck and cluers are having trouble coming up with more clues under the current constraints, the guesser can draw a second answer card, and maybe come back to the first one in a later phase.

To accommodate more than six players, consider having two players guessing, and/or two cluers using opposite sides of the same constraint sheet.

Answers – 200 word cards that can be printed on 10-per-page business cards such as Avery template 8371. Of course you can also just cut them out of regular paper, but note that you don't want the guesser to be able to see the answer through the sheet.

Constraints – Cut the sheets in half the long way (as indicated) and then fold each sheet in half (as indicated). If you're making multiple sets of sheets, you can do it double-sided by printing the second copy on the backs of the first, and then cut along both the "cut" and "fold" lines; just make sure that you print the backs so that after cutting them out, the opposite sides of each sheet have the same Phase Three letters as each other.