This is a significantly more difficult variant for the game Just One by Repos Production, Spiel des Jahres winner in 2019. Playing this variant requires a copy of the game along with a few extra easy to print/find items. All of the normal rules of Just One apply except where explicitly changed here.
I, Aaron Fuegi, along with my partner Susan Glass wrote a puzzle for the 2022 MIT Mystery Hunt based on Just One but where all the players misread the clue cards in a consistent way. To solve the puzzle, participants needed to figure out what each player was doing and then still figure out the clued card. Please feel free to stop here and solve the puzzle if you want; reading further will give you a head start on solving the original puzzle.
Here the same idea is used but with only a limited number of players misreading the card in each round.
Each player should be assigned a Transformation Rule at the beginning of the game. 9 rules are provided below. These can be assigned randomly or chosen by the players. If some players are clearly not as experienced with these transformations as others, the less skilled players should definitely be allowed to choose first - I think Transdeletion is the easiest rule to do here in terms of a combination of time/difficulty/applicability; some of the other rules are simpler but will much less often be able to work. Transformation rules are public/face up once assigned. It is fine to change them between cards but I wouldn't change them too often, like only after a full round of everyone guessing once or if someone is not happy with their rule.
Most of these rules are based on the National Puzzlers League (NPL) rules for Flats, which is why this variant is called Just One Flat. Here is a guide to the rules for all flat types, not just the ones I suggest you use here.
Feel free to also use/make up your own rules, just also assign them a number and make sure all players at the table understand how they work.
Print the table below and keep it available and easily viewable by all players.
| # | Rule Name | Rule Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anagram | Reorder the letters in the word. |
| 2 | Transdeletion | Remove a letter and then reorder the remaining letters. Do try to reorder to be different from 'Drop a Letter' below. |
| 3 | Transaddition | Add a letter and then reorder all the letters. Again, do try to reorder to be different from 'Add a Letter' below. |
| 4 | Letter Change | Change a single letter. |
| 5 | Changeover | Change one letter and then move it to a different position in the word. The other letters should keep their relative positions. Ex: 'sink' -> 'spin' |
| 6 | Homonym | Use a word that sounds the same but has a different spelling like 'hear' to 'here'. Length can change. Note that this rule will often not be possible. |
| 7 | Consonantcy | Keep all the consonants and keep their order. Arbitrarily change, remove, and add as many vowels as you wish. Y is a vowel. |
| 9 | Drop a Letter | Remove a letter from the word, in any position. Keep the remaining letters in order. |
| 9 | Add a Letter | Add a letter to the word, in any position. Keep the remaining letters in order. |
Before each round of play, distribute randomly and secretly cards to each player telling them whether on this round they should apply their Transformation Rule or just play normally. Below is a table suggesting how many players should use their rule each round. The # of players column counts all players in the game, there will be one less player giving clues each round.
| # of Players | Moderate | Hard |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 1 | 1 |
| 5 | 1 | 2 |
| 6 | 2 | 2 |
| 7 | 2 | 3 |
| 8 | 2 | 3 |
| 9 | 3 | 4 |
Normal playing cards can easily be used for this step. If playing on Moderate difficulty with 6 players, select 5 cards, 3 black and 2 red. Shuffle them and deal them to the players giving clues this round. Those who get black cards clue normally. Those who get red cards apply their transformation to the word on the card and then clue that new (transformed) word.
After picking a card, instead of having the guesser say a number, let the player on the left choose one of the words still by number. They should try to choose one that they think a lot of the transformations can apply to. Other guessers are welcome to offer suggestions like "I think #4 would be good". It is also fine to replace a card if you think all of the words on it are bad for this variant.
Optional rule: When applying a transformation, it is ok to create strings that are well known things and clueable even if they aren't really words. For example, a player doing a Transaddition of 'egg' could make it 'Greg' and then write 'Louganis'; similarly a player doing a Transdeletion of 'egg' could make it 'GE' and write 'corporation'; 'e.g.' out of egg would be fine too.
Very Important Note: Sometimes a player will not be able to apply their transformation, either because it is impossible or they just can't think of a way to do so. This is the reason the transformations are numbered above. If a player's transformation is Rule 4 (Letter Change) and they can't figure out a way to use it, they should go to Rule 5 (Changeover). This can go on, wrapping from 9 to 1, until the player finds a rule they can apply. If no rule works, just clue normally. If having trouble with any given rule, just move on to another one as quickly as you can - don't spend a lot of effort on a difficult/impossible rule.
I recommend that all players take at least one minute before writing their clue words, even if some of them decide on clues immediately, unless the guesser is being blindfolded the whole time; the later is best but a bit annnoying. Otherwise, the guesser will realize that the very fast clue writers did not need to transform their clues and they are not supposed to be able to have extra clues to that.
Scoring is also adjusted and wrong guesses are not penalized (I actually hate this even in the regular game and try to never play with the penalty). Play whatever number of rounds you wants; rounds here will be much longer. The group as a whole scores 1 point if the clued word is guessed as usual. In addition, for every transformed word that the guesser can figure out the team gets a bonus point so if two words were transformed in a given round, the team can get up to 3 points. Only one guess for the main word is still allowed and only one guess for each of the transformed words and you are not told in advance of your guesses which players were applying a transformation. Despite the above, feel free to let people try second or third guesses if you want; I think this is generally more fun - the one guess limit rule is just easier to compare scores between plays in a fair way.
The guesser should immediately be told when they get something right and if it is the main word or a secondary word. These are the the main responses that should be given:
"Yes, that is the main word" - Anyone can say this.
"Yes, that was the word I clued" - Must be said by the person with a tranformed word, even if the guesser seems to be directing their guess at someone else. If multiple people clued the same transformed word, all of them must say this.
"No, that was not the word I clued" - Can be said by anyone but mainly should be said if the guesser directs a guess at you in particular and it is not correct.
Don't make any general "No" responses because you could be wrong; the guess might be the correct answer to someone else's clue.
Don't use a clue word that strongly clues both your transformed word and the original word. This is both against the spirit of this variant and will make it nearly impossible for your group to score the extra point for your word.
Based on testing so far, I like 9 players with 3 transformed words of the 8 clued words. Lots of other numbers above will work fine if there are no cancellations but here, there can be a cancellation and there should still be a good chance for the guesser to figure things out.
If you end up trying this variant, please email me (aarondf@gmail.com) to let me know how it went.