Intercept

How to play

A code-and-interception game for two teams of two or more. Each team has its own device and keeps its words hidden from the other.

1. Each team has four secret keywords, numbered 1 to 4. They stay the same all game.
2. Each round, each team’s encryptor sees a three-digit code, like 3-1-4, and writes three clues that point at those keywords in that order.
3. Blue reads first. Their own team guesses the code and, from round two, Gold tries to intercept it. Then the code is revealed. Then it is Gold’s turn.
4. Guessing the other team’s code is an interception. Getting your own code wrong is a miscommunication.
5. Two interceptions win; two miscommunications lose. If nobody has won after eight rounds, interceptions minus miscommunications decides, and on a tie the teams guess each other’s keywords.
6. That is the whole art: clues clear enough for your team, and vague enough that the other team learns nothing from your earlier ones.

Why two devices? Each team’s words must stay hidden from the other. Both devices build the whole game from the same code, with no server and nothing sent anywhere. Every guess said aloud is entered on both devices, so the scores stay the same.

A device knows the other team’s code but never shows it. Each team only has to keep its eyes on its own screen.