Digital Alphabet Blocks

A performance game by Stephen Ng

The game involved hardware and software, consisting of six 8-inch wooden cubes with an LED letter displayed on one side, plus a video game component displayed on a projector. Rearrange the cubes to make words and score points. The screen shows your current set of letters so the audience can follow along. Periodically, a letter falls from above to replace one of your existing letters. Groups played in teams of four--three people to manipulate the cubes, and a spotter to help make words and anticipate new letters.

All the code is available on GitHub. The video game part is playable on a computer; contact the designer for more details.

Scar Talk

A performance game from Equinox 70, by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield).

Phrases related to Star Trek have had some letters transported away and replaced by other letters. Give clues for the resulting silly phrases.

This document contains a detailed explanation of the game, plus links to the web pages on which the game can be played.

Chain Reaction

Performance game at Equinox 70, by Henri Picciotto and NeilFred Picciotto (Hot and Renfield)

Chain Reaction was first played at a very early Equinox Party, we're not sure which one. It spawned a number of variants in the years that followed. For the 70th, we re-played the original game plus one variant, and we used a legal pad of answer words that Henri still had from decades ago (skipping over a few answers that were very "of their time").

Rules for the original game:

The host prepares words/phrases to be clued, written or printed large enough for the whole room to be able to read them. Each round has two cluers and one guesser, and runs for one minute. The guesser stands with their back to the stage, where the host holds up the answer words, visible to the cluers and the audience. When the guesser guesses the answer, a new answer word is revealed and play continues, until the timer runs out.

To form their clue, the two cluers take turns saying one word at a time, and as they do so, they must form a grammatically-correct question. It is recommended to start with the word "what". For example, if the answer word was "the Bay Bridge", the cluers might say:

Cluer 1: What 
Cluer 2: structure
C1: connects
C2: Oakland
C1: to
C2: San
C1: Francisco

The guesser of course can jump in anytime to guess an answer, even if the clue is not yet a complete sentence. On the other hand if the cluers reach the end of the intended sentence and the guesser still doesn't know, they can continue the sentence with "and"...

Variant: "Blind Chain Reaction"

This time, instead of two cluers and a guesser, each round has just one cluer and one guesser, and the guesser must participate in alternating words to form a grammatical question, even though they don't know what the question is trying ask.

In both versions (but especially in the "Blind" version), it's worth noting that while the question is required to be grammatically correct, there is no requirement that the intended answer word actually needs to be a correct answer to the question asked.

Performance Palindromes

A performance game from Equinox 69: Performance Palindromes by Rick Rubenstein (Rubrick)

 Answers

1968 Events

1968 Events, a performance game from Equinox 68 by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)

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.

Speed Chess

Speed Chess, a performance game from Equinox 64, by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)

Play requires a computer with a screen that can be seen by all; we used a projector.  The game is available on a web page (linked below), but once the page has loaded in your browser, the game can be played while offline – no further internet access is required.

In each round, there are two cluers and two guessers, one each for each of the two teams (Blue and Red).  The guessers stand with their backs to the screen; the cluers and the audience can see the screen.

Each round has nine answer words (or phrases with dictionary nature).  All answer words fit some constraint on their letters – the constraint varies from round to round.  The title of the round (shown at the top) has some letters in boldface type, that are suggestive of the constraint.  The game leader may wish to look at the answer words in advance to understand each round's constraint.  Generally they take one of three forms:

- A specified sequence of letters appearing consecutively.

- Specified consonants that appear in the given order, not consecutively, sometimes anchored to the beginning or end of the word.

- Specified vowels that appear with precisely indicated counts, in any order (e.g. "exactly three E's and one U, in any order, and no other vowels").

Each cluer starts with 30 seconds on their clock, and when their guesser gets a word or they decide to pass, they hit a button to stop their own clock and start the other team's clock – just like a chess clock.  The team that will clue first is indicated on screen; the game leader begins the round, revealing the nine answer words and starting the first team's clock.

The cluer from the Red team, say, picks one of the nine words and gives a clue for it.  The clue must not contain any of the answer words or alternate forms of them, or "rhymes with", etc.  If the Red guesser gets the word (or indeed, any of the current answer words, whether intended for the clue given or not), then the Red cluer hits their button to flip the timer to the Blue team.  The game leader marks the correctly-guessed word in red.

If the Red team's timer runs out, then the Blue team has their remaining time to clue and guess as many of the remaining words as they can until their time runs out or all nine words are guessed.  Then new cluers and guessers step up, the game leader advances to the next round, and it all begins again.

Round 0 is intended as a sample round, used to explain the mechanics; it only has three answer words instead of nine.  Then there are 15 real rounds that can be played.

Additional notes for the game leader

Whenever the background is grey, no timer is running; pressing "space" will give play to the indicated team and start their timer.  When the background is blue or red, that team is cluing and their timer is going.  Pressing "space" again will pause the timer (and go back to grey backgound) – though in practice that shouldn't be needed as normally play will go directly from one team to the other.

The Blue team's clock button is the letter "Z", the Red team's clock button is "/", the "slash" character – at opposite sides of the bottom row of the keyboard.  Alternatively, the game leader can use the letter "B" (in the middle of the bottom row) to flip to the other team at any time.

Clicking a word while the background is red or blue will award that word to the other team – normally done immediately after that other team has flipped the clock.  In case you accidentally award a word to the wrong team or award the wrong word or whatever, clicking the same word again will cycle through red, blue, white (still available to be guessed) or grey (disqualified, e.g. the cluer used a part of the word in their clue) – 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 15.

Pressing plus and minus before beginning a round will increase and decrease the timer time limit.  30 seconds seemed perhaps too short – we only had all nine words successfully clued/guessed in one  of the fifteen rounds, so maybe try longer.  Also note that if you press command-plus and command-minus to adjust the font size (which may be necessary depending on projector resolution), then the time limit will adjust as well; just press minus or plus to get it back to where you want.

 

Links

The game can be played at 

http://files.equinoxparty.org/64-speed-chess/

Optionally, you can setup a second screen that's visible to the guessers, showing only the round title, without the answer words of course.  Again, left- and right-arrow keys move forward and back through the rounds.  The guessers' screen is at 

http://files.equinoxparty.org/64-speed-chess/guessers.html

Just a Minute!

Performance Game from Equinox 62: "Just a Minute!" presented by Tyler Hinman (Mosayc)

Instructions and suggested topics.

On the Rack

ON THE RACK -- team performance game by Henri Picciotto (Hot), from Equinox 36 and Equinox 60.

Teams of 13 to 15 people.

EQUIPMENT

98 large index cards with letters on them, (the Scrabble distribution -- "the deck"), plus blank cards.

A fat marker, in a color different from the letters in the deck. (The color does not affect play, but it makes it possible to keep track of which tiles are part of the deck.)

A TEAM'S TURN

* They select seven players who will be "on the rack".

* Each of four of those players gets one tile randomly selected from the deck, which they hold up for all to see.

* The other three get blank tiles and the marker.

* A four-minute clock is started.

* In complete silence, each of the two players with blank tiles in turn uses the marker to write a single letter on their tile, in full view of everyone. [Alternate version: start a three-minute clock after the letters have been written.]

* The seven players stand with their letters visible to all.

* The remaining members of the team take turns calling out a one-, two-, or three-word definition for words that can be made out of those letters. If someone cannot think of such a definition when it is his or her turn, he or she can pass with no penalty. The solution words should be Scrabble-legal words consisting of three or more letters. No form of the answer word can appear in the definition.

* In complete silence, the players on the rack rearrange themselves so as to spell the word thus defined -- the tiles for unused letters are turned over. Silent nudging is allowed. If you keep score support person writes all the correct answers on a board of some sort for scoring at the end of the turn.

* If the players on the rack seem stumped, or if the person who called the definition realizes they made a mistake, they can decide to pass.

* Once the word is spelled correctly, a bell is rung.

* At the bell, or after a "pass", the next player calls out the next definition.

SCORING

If scoring, at the end of the team's turn:

* One point per word formed correctly in response to a definition.

* A given root word yields a single point, and thus there is no reason to use inflected forms (e.g. plural, past tense, etc.) unless the uninflected form is not available. For example, TONE and TONES would only be worth one point. STONE and STONED would be worth one point. But TONE and STONE would be worth two.

* No points for one- or two-letter words, for capitalized words, or for hyphenated words.

* In case of contested words, or of far-fetched connection between answer and definition, the decision of the judge is final.

If there's a desire to encourage longer words, scoring can be based on word length, but it's also fun to  go for speed and quantity of words without worrying about quality.

Caesar Salad

Performance game from Equinox 58 -- "Caesar Salad", by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)
Play requires a computer with a screen that can be seen by all; we used a
projector.  The game is available on a web page (linked below), but once
the page has loaded in your browser, the game can be played while offline -
no further internet access is required.

The room is divided into two teams - red and blue.  In each round, the
participants consist of two cluers and two guessers, one of each from each
team.  The guessers stand with their backs to the screen; the cluers and
the audience can see the screen.

Each round has nine answer words (or phrases with dictionary nature).  All
answer words fit some constraint on their letters - the constraint varies
from round to round.  The title of the round (shown at the top) has some
letters in boldface type, that are suggestive of the constraint.  The game
leader may wish to look at the answer words in advance to understand each
round's constraint.  Generally they take one of three forms:
- A specified sequence of letters appearing consecutively.
- Specified consonants that appear in the given order, not consecutively
(e.g. "a C, and then later an S, and then later an R").
- Specified vowels that appear with precisely indicated counts, in any
order (e.g. "exactly three A's and one E, in any order, and no I's, O's,
U's, or Y's").

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 red and blue going first.

The cluer from the red team, say, picks one of the nine words and gives a
clue for it.  The clue must not contain any of the answer words or
alternate forms of them, or "rhymes with", etc.  If the red 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 red team, and the
timer stops.  Play goes to the other team, and a new timer begins.

If the red team's time runs out, a buzzer sounds; no word is awarded and
play goes to the blue team with a fresh timer.  At the game leader's
discretion, a couple extra seconds can be given after the buzzer to allow
the red guesser make a guess, before starting the blue team's time.

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, and it all begins again.

Round 0 is intended as a sample round, used to explain the mechanics; it
only has three answer words instead of nine.  Then there are 15 real rounds
that can be played.

Additional notes for the game leader:
Whenever the background is grey, pressing "space" will give play to the
next team and start the timer.

Clicking a word while the background is red or blue 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 15.

Pressing plus and minus will increase and decrease the timer time limit.  8
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 adjust 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.

Once More With Relish

Once More With Relish, a performance game from Equinox 57, by Rick Rubenstein (Rubrick)

Familiar phrases were charaded by a team of volunteers, with each actor receiving only *one* word of the phrase. The charaders lined up on the stage in the correct order (as seen by the audience). On cue, each began simultaneously acting out their single word as best they could, over and over, until most audience members (by show of hands) had figured out the phrase.

The phrases were chosen randomly from this list:

SHE SELLS SEASHELLS BY THE SEASHORE
HAPPY BIRTH DAY TO YOU
FLY ME TO THE MOON
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST
ROW ROW ROW YOUR BOAT
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY 
BABY YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR
TO BE OR NOT TO BE
DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS

Elvis, in His Own Words

Performance game from Equinox 56: Elvis, in His Own Words by Ann Daniels (Iolanthe) & Jon Zingman (Plaid)

Instructions
Questions

Perceive Sound at This Location!

A performance game from Equinox 55: Perceive Sound at This Location! by Dan Bennett

The MC reads sentences that contains synonyms for two homonyms. (For the title, the answer is "Hear here".) Each player gets a turn to stand up and try to guess the homonyms. If they don't get it, the room shouts out the answer and the player gets a second and final sentence.

PowerPoint

PDF

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.

Heart to Spade Conversation

Heart to Spade Conversation, a performance game from Equinox 52, by Ann Daniels and Jon Zingman (Iolanthe and Plaid)

The Jokers.

Five Things

Performance game: a variation on the improv game "Five Things", presented by Myles Nye (Owler) at Equinox 51. 

Two clue givers attempt to get a guesser to perform a commonplace activity with outrageous modifications, giving clues only in pantomime and gibberish. For instance, the guesser might have to sail a boat but the boat is a piano, the water is Jell-O, and the sail is a kazoo. When the guesser thinks he has all the elements, he performs the activity and the emcee will ask the guesser to announce what he is doing. In this version, the audience also tries to guess the modifications, as well as the wordplay characteristic they share, such as "ends with an O", "A is the only vowel", or "the last two letters are a chemical symbol".

States Game

Performance game from Equinox 48: States Game (instructions), by Naomi Zingman-Daniels.

Chromosomal Anomalies

A performance game from Equinox 46: Chromosomal Anomalies (pdf) by Ann Daniels (Iolanthe) -- mutate a common phrase and clue the mutant phrase.

Threefix

A performance game by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield), from Equinox 44: Threefix (txt) - Giving a clue is tricky when you don't know the answer word yourself.

Rhyme Time

A performance game by Rick Rubenstein, from Equinox 43: Rhyme Time.

Given a part of speech and either a split-second charade or a rhyming word, participants filled in blanks in poems, Mad Libs style.

Here are the results: Rhyme Time (pdf)