deduction

This game is all about thinking up clever words that will be hard to decipher and cleverly combining letter pieces to guess secret words.

Decipher is a different kind of word game for 2–4 players. Players use four differently-shaped letter pieces to create and solve word puzzles. In each round, a different player builds a secret word puzzle. The others know only which letter pieces are in the secret word and gather clues and points by asking about where letter pieces go. Can you decipher the the secret word?

The Letter Piece Game system is a special way to build letters from four different basic shapes. The idea for the Letter Piece Game™ system comes from the game designers of Wordsmith — Bill Eberle, Greg Olotka, Peter Olotka, and Jack Kittredge — whose credits include Cosmic Encounter, Dune, Hoax, and more.

Decipher includes the same playful semi-transparent colored plastic letter pieces found in Wordsmith. A special plastic insert turns the game box into a game component.

—description from the publisher

Quick! It’s time to sharpen your claws and head to the Cloaked Cat ball! Players try to unmask each other among all the velvet-pawed guests. They’ll try to play their cat cards skillfully, draw the right conclusions, all while trying to reveal as little as possible about themselves. The player who can deduce the most information about the other players wins!

—description from the publisher

At the edge of our solar system, a dark planet may lurk. In 2015, astronomers estimated a large distant planet could explain the unique orbits of dwarf planets and other objects. Since then, astronomers have been scanning the sky, hoping to find this planet.

In The Search for Planet X, players take on the role of astronomers who use observations and logical deductions to search for this hypothetical planet. Each game, the companion app randomly selects an arrangement of objects and a location for Planet X following predefined logic rules.

Each round, as the earth travels around the sun, players use the app to perform scans and attend conferences. As they gain information about the location of the objects, they mark that information on their deduction sheets. As players learn the locations of the various objects, they can start publishing theories, which is how players score points.

As more and more objects are found, players narrow down the possible locations for Planet X. Once a player believes they know its location and the objects on either side of it, they use the app to conduct a search. The game ends when a player successfully locates Planet X, and all players have a final chance to score some additional points.

The Search for Planet X captures the thrill of discovery, the puzzle-y nature of astronomical investigation, and the competition inherent in the scientific process. Can you be the first to find Planet X?

—description from the publisher

Pictures is a quick-playing family game with very simple rules. Form the image on your secret picture card with one set of components, either shoelaces, color cubes, icon cards, sticks and stones or building blocks in such a way that the other players guess what image you have pictured:

Pull out a marker from the bag that determines your secret picture card.
Then form that image with your components in such a way that it is recognizable.
And finally guess what image each other player has pictured.

The players get points for correctly guessing other players images and for other players guessing their image. The most points wins!

—description from the publisher

In Narabi, players are dealt 3-4 cards at the start of the round, with those cards bearing either a blank or a number from 0 to 9. Each card is sleeved, and within the sleeve on its back is a rule explaining how this card can be swapped with another card: swap it with a red card, a card with an even number, a card with a higher number, and so on. You can look at all the rules on cards in front of you, but you cannot communicate to others what those rules are. You cannot change the order of cards in front of you.

On a turn, a player must swap one of their cards (following that card's rule) with another player's card, then someone records that move on a chart. Blanks are considered to be 0 and an even number for the purpose of swaps. When one of your cards is swapped, you can look at the rule on the card you receive. You can suggest moves to others or ask questions of them, and they can respond with "yes" or "no" answers as long as they don't identify the rule on any of their cards.

If you place all the numbers in numerical order (disregarding blanks) in either clockwise or counterclockwise order before you would need to make a 25th move, you all win the game. Your team's score is "Great", "Good", "Horrible", etc. based on how many moves it took you to win. If you don't win, then you must all be worse than horrible, which is very bad indeed.

In the game's expert mode, you cannot speak at all and you cannot undo a player's swap on your next turn.