Contact is one of my favorite games.

First, let me define the game.

Def (20-questions): A game where LEADER thinks of a secret word and GUESSERS ask binary questions to try to guess the secret.

Def the “heavy-intersection” game. LEADER thinks of a secret word and gives a bunch of clues. Then, OPPONENT has a chance to guess the secret word. If OPPONENT says anything that pattern matches the LEADERs clues, then that’s called a block regardless of if it’s actually what the LEADER was thinking of. Finally, if OPPONENT is wrong then guessers get to elect someone to guess the secret word.

The game is called heavy-intersection because the idea is that if you have people X,Y,Z with LEADER=X, OPPONENT=Y, guessers = {Z}, then X wants to think of a secret word where Z has some comparative advantage over Y of having the word in cache. but for maximum fun levels, Y should still have the secret on disk, just not in L1 cache.

Def (Contact) meta-LEADER thinks of a secret name. Tells GUESSERS the first letter of the name. Then, people self elect as mini-LEADER, and lead a mini-game of heavy-intersection with meta-LEADER as OPPONENT. If the GUSSERS win the heavy-intersection game then they get a question in the meta 20-questions game against meta-LEADER.

Remark: this game is actually called Boticcelli. But I’ve rebranded it. sorry about that.

why do I like this game

At it’s best, I think this game is

  • a chance for creative clues
  • a chance to get to know people better
  • a chance for recurring jokes