Author Richard

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Richard Garfield is one of the world's best known game designers. For his first game, Magic: The Gathering, he was granted the patent on trading card games--now a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. Since that time, he has produced many award winning trading card games and board games including Netrunner, Robo Rally, What Were You Thinking, and Filthy Rich. In the realm of computer gaming he has been a game designer and consultant for Electronic Arts and Microsoft. Richard was a professor of mathematics at Whitman College before he left to help start Wizards of the Coast, the original publisher of Magic, now currently owned by Hasbro. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. 

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Inoki – The Poison Word Game

Jan 16, ’12 7:43 PM

On a trip recently I came up with a simple game that takes no equipment. It is designed as a two player game, though the addition of extra players seems pretty straight forward – and I will take a stab at this after describing the basic version.

Players agree on a poison word or phrase. Choose a player to be the maker. Subsequent games the winner becomes the maker. The maker is responsible for choosing the poison word. After a word is agreed upon the game begins. There are two ways to win a round of Inoki, either say the poison word so that your opponent hears it but doesn’t notice, or notice when your opponent says the poison word. The game may end in minutes or it may take days to complete. An integral part of play is the players being off guard – and therefore susceptible to the opponent slipping the word into conversation unnoticed, or tricked into saying the word. When claiming victory a player says “Inoki!”

A few examples of play will make it clear:

Orange is the poison word.

Player A: Can you peel an orange for me?
Player B: (Not Noticing) Sure!
Player A: Inoki! (Winning)

Or

Player A: What fruit do we have?
Player B: (off guard) Two apples and an orange.
Player A: Inoki! (Winning)

Or

Player A: Do you see that orange cat over there?
Player B: (Noticing) Inoki! (Winning)

 

The choice of word will have a large impact on how the game is played. You can choose common or uncommon words, and each has its’ own charm – though you will likely want to avoid super common words like ‘the‘. It is possible with tricky words and cautious players that no one makes a move for an unacceptably long time – in which case players can agree to end the current game and choose a new poison word.

One final detail, you probably want to allow the non-maker to be able to give feedback or even veto the maker’s word. This is a casual game and all players should buy in to the poison word. The game doesn’t officially start until the non-maker says ‘begin’. This prevents you from losing a series of games like I did where my opponent mumbled the poison word, then when I asked for clarification repeated the word then claimed Inoki moments later. Such trickery!

The thing that interests me most about this game is the way it bleeds into real life, things that happen to you and around you, conversations you take part in – they are all part of the battlefield on which you are playing. In this small way it reminds me of the game Assassin.

To play with more than 2 players, I would make it so that the maker must get buy in from all other players, who each must say “begin” before the game starts. When a player says the poison word so that any player can hear but doesn’t notice, they can call Inoki, and win the round. If any player notices and calls Inoki first all players other than the player who used the poison word wins the round. On subsequent rounds, the player who called Inoki is the maker. This could be unsatisfying, particularly with larger groups of players, since a particular player may lose or win the game while not even being around, but for small groups in reasonably close quarters – a car trip or a dinner party for example, it should work fine.

I think sharing the victory when catching a player saying the poison word (intentionally or otherwise) will keep it from becoming a speed game. The alternative, of course, is to rule that the first player to call Inoki wins – and that will probably be better for some groups.

 

 

 

Comments (2)

Eleven+

Apr 16, ’11 11:23 AM

Eleven+ is a game I made on a car trip. It requires no equipment, and so is easy to play on car trips, or in bars or restaurants. It is probably best with 3-5 players.

Eleven+ was inspired by the game Bartok: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartok_(card_game). In Bartok and related games players add rules to the game as it progresses, making it become more and more ornate over time. One of the charms of the game is that it becomes less and less about playing the game and more and more about your capability of following the rules without making a mistake. When Eleven+ was created I thought it might be fun to attach that principle to a simpler game, so I used the game “Eleven” which is a nim-style game. I was surprised that the simplicity and the determinism of the game made it more enjoyable, since the game was more focussed on the unique and fun elements of Bartok; navigating complex rules and adding new rules to the game.

Eleven: Players count from one to eleven, the player that hits eleven is eliminated – and the player to the eliminated player’s left starts the next game. Players can add one two, or three numbers to the count. Each game of Eleven has a loser, when only one player is left that player has won the round.

For example:
Alice: “1, 2″
Bill: “3″
Charlie: “4,5,6″
Alice: “7,8″
Bill: “9,10″
Charlie: “11″
Now Charlie is eliminated and it is Alice’s turn, with only Alice and Bill left.

Eleven+: Play eleven, and after each round the winner adds a new rule. Players are encouraged to identify problems that might come up during play because of the rule at this time; this feedback may lead to the rule maker clarifying the rule or ditching it in favor of another. The winner also begins the next game. In addition to being eliminated for saying “11″ a player is also eliminated for failing to follow the rules.

To illustrate the game I recorded the rules we used in a 4 person game on a recent car trip:

  • Once each game a player can halve an even number as a move (for example: “6, 3, 4″ would be legal provided no other player had used the half rule in the current game.)
  • Numbers on the licence plate in front of the car don’t exist (for example, if the car in front was license 348 YUY a legal move might be “2,5,6″.)
  • Start at 11 and go down to 1, the player that says “zero” loses.
  • Five doesn’t exist.
  • An animal is substituted for “10″. The animal must be different than one used by any player on the car trip.
  • You never say “11″, instead you say any other number that exists.
  • If a player makes only one move the next player must use more than one move.
  • Players must say “Tea for Two” rather than “2″.
  • All players use a second language for numbers.
  • If a player uses 3 moves the next player must say “slow down” before taking his or her turn.
  • If a player uses the “halving” special move listed above, the direction of play reverses. The direction is reset to normal in the next game.
  • If a player has to say “zero” he or she can instead read a word off a road sign. This restarts the current game, but this rule cannot be used in the restarted game.
  • Instead of saying “3″ a player must clap three times.
  • Instead of saying “1″ a player must use the color of the car in front. If there is no car in front “invisible” must be used.

I won’t even attempt to illustrate the above game being played, but rest assured that by the end few games were ending because a player reached 0!

 

Comments (5)

Happy Holidays

Dec 27, ’10 9:59 PM

My copious audience will notice a failure to post a new Game Glimpse – which is technically a violation of my reader/writer agreement. I actually HAD one made (on Magical Athlete), but … I failed to hand it off to my webmaster and so here we are.

In the mean time we are playing many games this holiday – including Dixit, Word on the Street, Through the Ages, Innovation, Settler’s of Catan, Spite and Malice, Creights, Liar’s Dice, Party Playoff (a very peculiar game), and 7 Wonders.

Expect a Glimpse of Magical Athlete next week – and we wish you a happy and game filled holiday!

Richard Garfield

Comments (4)

Quadradius

Feb 28, ’10 4:48 PM

The computer game concepts that most interest me, and most engage my computer game design time, are those that bridge the paper game world and the traditional computer game world. If you play a game like Scrabble, or Bridge, or Magic online your experience is vastly different than Starcraft or Counterstrike or World of Warcraft. Why are there so few games in the gulf between these designs?

There are a few, and one of my favorites is Quadradius. It feels like a board game, but is not at all a mere transliteration of a board game. It brings the strengths of the computer to more traditional game design without the burden of trying to be a simulation.

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Handicaps

Jan 29, ’10 12:07 PM

Handicaps are a regular feature of some games and sports, go and golf being two prime examples. Often among game players it is resisted, however, because if they play at an advantage and win – well – it isn’t really a victory. I used to be in that camp, but became a complete convert a long time ago playing squash.

My experience playing squash was that of being crushed repeatedly by my more advanced opponent, and while I enjoyed the game it was a bit depressing. We talked about handicaps, but I was resistant because I felt like that would take away the value of the win if I did win. Eventually we tried it though, and I immediately started having a much better time. I realized my resistance was founded on a false premise, that if I win without a handicap it was a glorious victory. In fact, if someone is much better at squash they will expend less energy beating you, and how glorious is it if your victory was based on your opponent slightly underestimating how much energy he had to expend? It was wonderful seeing that my opponent was working now as hard as I was every game, and that if they slacked I could take advantage of it.

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