Communication Limits

Legend has it that the old mansion on the outskirts of the city is home to a fabulous treasure! Hoping to find it, you decide to spend the night there. You are about to give up when the ghost of Captain Echo appears to help you find his treasure. He isn’t much of a talker, but he plays a mean tambourine, and he’s going to use it to tell you which rooms to search in!

Players cooperate to find Captain’s treasure before the moon has traveled across the sky and the night is over. Each round, one player becomes the Ghost of Captain Echo. The Ghost must use a tambourine to give clues that help the other players guess the correct Noise card. If they do, they get to reveal a piece of the Captain’s treasure.

—description from the publisher

Sound Box is a co-operative party game for 4 to 7 players in which you listen to your friends performing weird sounds as they try to make you guess all sorts of concepts!

At the beginning of each round you place Sound cards on the board and draw a numbered token from a bag to discover which one is assigned to you. Take your time to come up with the perfect sound to represent your card: you will have to imitate that sound to suggest your concept to the Guesser. If you are the Guesser, instead, your job will be to listen to the sounds performed by the Soundmakers.

At the start of the timer, all Soundmakers start to perform their sounds...simultaneously! Get ready for 13 seconds of hilarious acoustic extravaganza! Have you ever heard the sound of a giant monster attack fighting a guitar hero on a stormy night during a tennis match? Well, something like this may definitely happen to you!

When the timer runs out, the Guesser tries to find as many Sound cards as possible, one at a time! There are more cards on the board than sounds made by the Soundmakers, will you be able to find them all? Each correct guess gets you 1 point, but if you make a mistake, the round ends immediately.

A different player will be the Guesser each round. If over subsequent rounds you gain enough points to reach the end of the Soundtrack, all players win. But beware, each Sound card that is left unguessed at the end of each round will make you lose life depending on the numbered token it is associated to, and if your Heart marker reaches the bottom of its track, all players lose!

Paint the Roses is a 2-5 player cooperative logic deduction game that automatically adapts to your skill during play.

Set in the puzzling world of Alice in Wonderland, you and your friends are the newly appointed Royal Gardeners. You are working together to finish the palace grounds according to the whims of the Queen of Hearts. Use strategy, logic, and teamwork to finish the garden whilst staying one step ahead of the Queen, otherwise, the last thing you hear will be, "Off With Their Heads!".

The Queen's whims are shared via cards, secret instructions each player is given into how the garden should be arranged. Her whims are always changing, so as soon as you solve one, a new one is in your hand.

Every turn, together as a team you must guess at least one of these secret whim cards. You can't say what your card shows, but by carefully placing a new shrub tile into the garden (taken from those available in the Greenhouse) you are able to reveal clues, tokens that will show any matches between the arrangement in the garden and the secret whims each player holds in their hands.

Although you can't discuss your own secret whim card, you can openly discuss other players'. Share your theories at the table and then make a guess. Correctly guessing a whim will move you forward on the score track, but the Queen is always following and her speed automatically adjusts based on your current score. Guess incorrectly and the Queen moves twice as fast, her axe ever closer to your neck.

—description from the publisher

In the Palm of Your Hand is a new team-based game from first-time designer Timothée Decroix! Help your grandparent relive their memories using 11 different 3D objects and over 100 beautifully-illustrated cards!

One player (grandchild) must “mime” memories depicted on cards by using objects in the palm of another player (grandparent), whose eyes are shut.

The grandchild draws 2 random cards from their hand, secretly looks at them, then uses any of the 11 3D objects included in the box to mime the memories in the grandparent's palm.

Cards are added (by the opposing team and from the deck) until there are 8 cards total. The grandparent then opens their eyes and must find the 2 correct memories out of the 8 cards on the table!

The game ends once everyone has had a chance to be the grandparent!

Decorum is a cooperative, hidden information game where you and your partner share the same objective: decorate your home in a way that makes you both happy. The problem is, different things make each of you happy and nobody says exactly what they need. Can you find a happy compromise, or is it time to move out?!

-Play through 30 unique scenarios, each introducing new twists and challenges.
-Keep your conditions a secret, they say how you want the house decorated.
-Add, remove, and swap objects or repaint rooms to make the house look just right… for you.
-Respond with “Love it”, “Hate it”, or “Fine with it” to work together toward a perfectly decorated home.
-There is a solution for each scenario, the trick is figuring it out in time.

At its heart, Décorum is a pretty straightforward logic puzzle. There are a small number of ways to arrange the internal pieces that meet all the requirements listed on the player’s rule sheets simultaneously. The twist of Décorum is that it’s also a hidden information game. No player has all of the rules. While playing, the players will have to watch their partner’s moves just as carefully as they’re planning their own. Even more crucially, they’ll have to communicate why they’re making the moves they’re making–using the very limited means we’ve provided them.

Décorum might be about solving a puzzle, but it’s really a game about communication and compromise. The real challenge isn’t just solving the problem with the limited information you and your players have; it’s dealing with the frustrations that will inevitably occur when your partner does something that messes up your plan. In order to be successful in Décorum, there will come a point where both players will have to let go of their initial strategy for how they were going to finish the board and start paying attention to what their partner is doing instead. By introducing and providing an incentive to resolve conflict, Décorum mechanically encourages (or even requires) a positive form of compromise.

Each player draws a "Scenario" card that lists a set of criteria of what types of décor a room must have or cannot have. For example "No room may contain a lamp" or "Every room must contain a wall hanging". Players keep their criteria secret.

The play surface is a board displaying various rooms in a house. Each room has multiple items that can potentially be placed in the room. Players take turns placing, moving, or removing colored tokens on the board, where each token represents an item of home décor. Each token placed may conform with, or violate, the other players' criteria. After each token is placed, other players may state they like the item of décor, as placed, or they do not like the item of décor, as placed. Further discussion or explanation is not allowed.

The game ends when all players' criteria are satisfied.