How to play
The paradox
A hidden target word is live, like an armed bomb. Each phone holds a different partial lens on it. The team wins by getting the right person to SAY the word — but the law is inverted from Taboo: the moment you know the word for certain, you can no longer say it. The phone simply removes it from your menu. You can only ever win by firing a guess while still genuinely uncertain.
Speech is the fuse
One shared fuse counts down. It does not count how often you talk — it counts new knowledge. A clue that tightens the board spends a breath (● tick); restating, herding and pointing are free. The fuse is set to N + 2, where N is the shortest chain of facts that forces the answer. There is almost no slack — every wasted LOOK is lethal.
The verbs
- SAY — assert a word aloud. Say the live word while uncertain → disarmed.
- SAY-NOT — a denial. Still a transmission; rules a region out.
- LOOK — reveal a true feature your lens shows. The main way facts land.
- DROP — paint a word red to clear noise or signal.
- EXAMINE — tap a teammate to read their state, never their lens.
The phone only ever lists what is grammatical for you, never what is correct. Illegal utterances simply aren't on the menu — there is nothing to resist.
Red wires & decoys
Forbidden words show in red. Some reds are decoys — duds, not the answer. A quiet player might be guarding the live word… or babysitting nothing. Following the nervous one is a trap the game sets for you.
Getting turned
When your legal options hit zero you don't go quiet — you turn. You're still on the team and still lose if the virus wins, but you lose your clean voice and the bomb starts putting words in your mouth: forced lies you must deliver, loudly, and can't flag. The tell is the insistence — a clean player states a fact once; only the virus repeats and accelerates. Trust the board over the voices.
The plague curve
Winning is what spreads the virus: disarm a word and a host is carried into the next round. The campaign self-escalates — assemble the hidden cure sentence, one word per win, before the contagion outpaces you.
Full design: OVERVIEW.md. In the lineage of Pontypool.