Hello Group, Solve Mixer

A Wordle-ish mixer from Equinox 73

Hello Group, Solve Mixer by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)

Each player receives a sticker on their back with a five-letter word, plus three separate half-sheets of paper that are labeled page 1, 2, and 3.

The game was setup for 55 players, though in the end we had fewer than 55 players, so some people took double solving duty.

Within the PDF:

• The first 55 sheets each contain a page 1 and a page 2. These should be cut in half before play.
• Everyone's page 1 is the same as each other so of course it doesn't matter who gets which one. 
• Each player gets a different page 2, but again it doesn't matter who starts off with which one since part of the game will be re-distributing them.
• The next 28 sheets each contain two different page 3's. These should also be cut in half before play.
• Again, it doesn't matter who starts off with which particular page 3 since part of the game will be re-distributing them.
• The next four sheets are the stickers. They are to be printed using Avery 5162 template labels – that is, 1 1/3" x 4", with 14 labels to a sheet.

Further instructions are on the sheets.

Fakelore

A Fictionary variant using lesser-known folk tales from around the world, by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield) and Lisa Eckstein (Mooncalf).

Each page of Summary Cards (PDF) is to be cut into six cards for one round of play. In each round, the title of a real folk tale is printed at the top of each card; one card has the real summary for that title. Twenty different folk tales are provided, one on each page.

Instructions (PDF) to be printed one per person.

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.

Satellite Luster

Pencil-paper game from Equinox 69: Satellite Luster by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)

Instructions for players, instructions for the presenter, and links to the game and the answer sheet can all be found here.

1968 Events

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

LMNOP, my dear Watson

Mixer from Equinox 67: LMNOP, my dear Watson, by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)

Each answer word contains three consecutive letters of the alphabet, separated by single letters, such as "eLeMeNtary".

The PDF is intended for duplex printing (i.e. both sides of the page). If you don't have a proper duplex printer, you can print the odd pages, then feed the sheets through again to print the evens (as long as you're careful about which way you feed the sheets through the second time for your particular printer).

License Plate Stories

A creative game from Equinox 66: License Plate Stories, 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

Big Picture Perfect

Paper-pencil puzzle from Equinox 63, by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield): Big Picture Perfect

Adjust a Minute!

A mixer from Equinox 62: "Adjust a Minute!" by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)


Sheets (including instructions)
Stickers
(print the stickers on Avery 5162 or compatible labels – that is, 1 1/3" x 4", with 14 labels to a sheet)

It Ain't ME Babe

"It Ain't ME Babe", a mixer from Equinox 61, by  NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield) and Henri Picciotto (Hot).

1. Add a two-letter state abbreviation to your keyword to form another word – the two letters of the state abbreviation will stay consecutive, but may be inserted at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the keyword.
2. Find other people “from the same state”.
3. Within your state, arrange in alphabetical order (by keyword).
4. Arrange the states to form a hypothetical new interstate highway.

The first three pages of the PDF are the examples given to explain the rules above.

The final answer spells out "Equinox party goers, get your kicks on Route Sixty-Six Revisited"

We envisioned the hypothetical new highway would go from Michigan to California, but that yielded the answer backwards. It would have been better to go from CA to MI.

Also: David Moulton (Badir) suggested that a better answer, given the party's theme, would have been "...get your fun on Route 61..."

Have You Got the Time?

A mixer by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield) from Equinox 60: Have You Got the Time?

This PDF is intended for duplex printing (i.e. both sides of the page).  If you don't have a proper duplex printer, you can print the odd pages, then feed the sheets through again to print the evens (as long as you're careful about which way you feed the sheets through the second time for your particular printer).

Also note that the pages in the PDF contain all of the clues in order followed by all of the answer-blanks in order, and so to actually play the game, after printing (and confirming that the duplex printing worked out correctly), the pages should be shuffled before being distributed to players.

If you have fewer than 64 players (but ideally more than 32), some players can be given two sheets, and then when either one finds its match, you hand it off to keep the matched sheets together as you continue to circulate.

(Of course, given the specificity of the final message, it's not a great game for re-using, but you might get ideas from it, or keep the clues and change the message.)

Counting Bee

A whole-room game presented by Ann Daniels (Iolanthe) and Jon Zingman (Plaid) at Equinox 60.
Neil Picciotto (Renfield) compiled the word list.
A version of this game was created by Henri Picciotto, and was played at a very early Equinox party.

Two people get up. A word is read from a list by the emcee.

The first person to correctly state how many letters are in the word wins, and faces another person. After four wins, a player sits down.

A final round can be played among the people who won four times in the first round.

Hello Lamppost

Mixer from Equinox 59: "Hello Lamppost" by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)

The final four pages of the PDF are a separate miniature version to be used as an example:

- "caution (4)" yields CARE
- "unencumbered (4)" yields FREE
    - those two go together as the compound word CAREFREE
- "horse strap (4)" yields REIN
    - which connects to the prior one yielding the common phrase FREE REIN
- "assert (5)" yields STATE
    - which connects to the prior one in a less obvious way, yielding the word REINSTATE

(It is worth noting that there are a few false positives in the set, some of which are at least as legit-sounding as the correct solutions. Players should not hesitate to ask the game leader for confirmations of their solutions.)

Once everything is chained together, a message is revealed; in the example, the message spells GOOD!

Answers.

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.

57 Varieties

57 Varieties, a wall game from Equinox 57, by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)

frIends, roMans, equinoXers

A mixer from Equinox 56: frIends, roMans, equinoXers by Dan Egnor & NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield)

Each page was cut in half to make two 8.5x5.5 sheets.  The halves with the
clues and two-word crosses (clue sheets) were given to players.  The halves
with the large letters and Roman numerals (answer sheets) were kept, to be
given out to players who solved their clue sheets.   After solving, players
stood in a line by number, and the answer sheet letters spelled a message.

To solve each sheet, players needed to complete the micro-crossword.  Each
word contained an embedded Roman numeral, e.g. "AXLE" contains "XL" (40).
 The small formula printed on the sheet indicated what to do with the two
numbers (add them, subtract them, ...) to get a result.  The crossing
letter and formula result were the key to get the answer sheet.

Long-Lost Conjoined Twins

A mixer from Equinox 55: Long-Lost Conjoined Twins by NeilFred Picciotto (Renfield) and Dan Egnor.