A cooperative word-association game by François Romain, published by Repos Production. Three to six players, about thirty minutes. Back to the table
There is no winner. The whole table plays against its own best score, written in the Record of Legends. Each of you writes four one-word clues about your own board; then, one at a time, everyone else rebuilds your board from those clues alone while you sit in silence.
Four Keyword cards sit in a square in the middle of your clover. Each card has a word on all four edges — but only the eight words facing outward count. The eight facing inward are decoys: everyone can see them, and they belong to no pair.
Each of the four clue zones spans the two outward words along that edge. So the top clue is about the top word of the top-left card and the top word of the top-right card, and so on.
Everyone does this at the same time, privately, on their phone.
For each of your four pairs, write one word that ties its two Keywords together. For House and Firefighter you might write Station. For Sheep and Clothing, Wool.
A clue may be a single word — compound words count — and a common noun, proper noun, acronym, number or a sound: Rabbit, Clooney, FBI, 13, Bzzzz. Write a compound solid or hyphenated: night-light, fire-station.
A clue may not be one of your own Keywords or its translation, a word in the same family as one (Prince for Princess), or a made-up word.
This version refuses a clue outright only when it contains a space or is one of your own Keywords. For "same family" and "made-up" it raises a note and lets you through — no dictionary knows Clooney, and the table is a better judge than a word list.
One player is the Spectator. Their four cards go back in a pile with one extra card nobody has seen, all shuffled and turned face up in the middle. Everyone else rebuilds the Spectator's board from the four clues.
The Spectator may not communicate in any way — no words, no faces, no pointing. If the rest of you disagree, the player to the Spectator's left decides, and commits the board.
Cards can be turned. A card in the right place facing the wrong way shows the wrong two words, so turning is half the puzzle.
| All four right, first attempt | 6 |
| Otherwise, per correct card after the second attempt | 1 |
If the first attempt is wrong, the Spectator silently takes back the wrong cards — saying nothing about which clue went astray — and the correct ones stay put. You get one more attempt, then score one point per correct card, nought to four.
Points are counted per card, not per clue. A card sits under two clue zones, so one card in the wrong place spoils two clues and still costs one point.
Then the next player to the left becomes the Spectator. When everyone has taken the chair once, add up the points — six per player is a perfect game — and see whether you have beaten your table's record.
Once the game is familiar, raise the number of extra cards shuffled in before each Resolution. Agree one number and use it for everyone. The table screen has the dial.