Just One

Just One is a game from 2018. It was nominated for many awards, and it won many too, the most prestigious one being the Spiel des Jahres (2019). This is a party game and a cooperative game. The idea is simple. Every round one person plays the active player and needs to guess a word. That word is known to everyone else, and everyone must give a one word clue to help the active player guess the word. These clues are written down independently. The twist is before showing the clues to the active player, they are revealed among the other players at the same time, and if any of the clues given are the same, these repeated clues must be hidden. If there are too many clashes, the active player may end up with just one clue or even none at all. As clue givers, your dilemma is you don't want to give clues which are so common that someone else would be giving the same clue. Yet if everyone avoids those obvious clues, then the clues you give might end up to be too obscure to help the active player. A full game is played for 13 rounds, and you try to get any many correct guesses as possible. Each round, the active player can only make one guess. Everyone takes turns being the active player. 

These two words below were the only two clues I had when I was the active player. What would your guess be?  

My guess was "alien", and I was right. That wasn't too hard. 

The words to guess are printed on cards. Each card has five words. The active player draws a card and shows it to everyone else without looking at it himself. He then states a number from 1 to 5. That determines which word on the card needs to be guessed. In one round we had this card below, and the word to guess was the fourth one - "cycle". 

These were the clues we gave - "wheel", "race", "repeat", "life". Would you have guessed it correctly? As you can see, we are making use of the fact that some words have multiple meanings, or are commonly used with some other words. 

Here are some other examples of cards in the game: 

The game is certainly playable as a family game, just that depending on the age of the children playing, you have to adjust how you give clues. 

We prepared a stack of 13 cards when we set up the game, because the game is played over 13 rounds. If we made a correct guess, we placed the card face-up. Otherwise, we placed it face-down. We were not doing so well. 

One of the words we had to guess was "drag". Other players gave clues like "pull" and "movement". I gave the clue "queen", because there is a term "drag queen". Some players did not understand at all why I gave this clue. Thankfully the active player understood and made the correct guess. In this case "queen" was an important clue, because he had to find one word which was associated with every single clue. The other clues were closely related, and many words were related to them. However to find a word which also related to "queen" was not easy, and the active player realised it was "drag". 

As you play, you kind of get a feel for what kind of clues your friends tend to give. I became known as the guy who gave quirky clues. So others would try to avoid giving such clues. Maybe one person will always give the simplest and most straight-forward clue. Others on the team can somewhat collaborate by letting him give such clues and avoiding such clues themselves. 

Try to guess this word. The answer will be shown at the bottom. The clues are "junior", "student", "starting", "school", "foundation", "pupil". 

Here's another one: "vision", "light", "dark", "underground", "car", "drill". 

I keep thinking of Just One as a game from India, because Jaswant is a common Indian name. The concept is very simple. Yet it is captivating. A clever idea implemented well. This is something casual gamers and non-gamers can quickly get into. It's an excellent game for a social setting because all those clues will trigger much discussion. It's a great ice-breaker. 

~~~ Answers ~~~

Clues: "junior", "student", "starting", "school", "foundation", "pupil". Answer: "primary". 

Clues: "vision", "light", "dark", "underground", "car", "drill". Answer: "tunnel".