a game of simultaneous word describing and guessing, designed with Shlomit Lehavi, Yaminie Patodia, and Seanita Tolliver, at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program | 2008

materials

Split is designed to be recreated by the players with every game. The only supplies necessary are slips of paper and a different colored pencil for each player.

construction

Each player writes at least 20 words on separate slips of paper using their assigned color. Each player then creates 5 win condition cards on the slips of paper. These cards consist of any combination of three colored dots corresponding to the colors of the colored pencils (for example: red-green-blue, red-red-orange, etc.)


GAME RULES


start of game

Combine word cards and win condition cards into separate decks. Shuffle each deck. Each player then draws three win condition cards and keeps them hidden.

gameplay

To begin the round, two players draw one word card each. On the count of three, they each begin to describe the word simultaneously under these conditions:

1) They can only speak and not act out or use hand motions to describe the words
2) They may not use any part of the actual word to describe the word
3) They may not describe how the word sounds

Guessers may continuously guess words during the round from either or both describers. Describers may not attempt to guess another describer’s word. The first player that guesses a word correctly ends the round, wins that word card, and displays it face up in front of them.

For the next round, the winning guesser and describer become guessers. The losing describer remains a describer. For games with four players, the losing guesser becomes a describer. For games with more than four players, the winning describer may chose which losing guesser becomes a describer.

scoring points

Whenever a player can match a win condition card to the colors of the word cards in front of them, they:

1) Flip over and display the matching win condition card
2) Discard the matching word cards
3) Draw a new win condition card into their hand

ending the game

The game ends when all the word cards have been drawn. The person with the most win condition cards displayed in front of them wins the game.