Just One
Everyone writes a one-word clue to the same mystery word, but matching clues are cancelled and the guesser never sees them.
A game in which the obstacle is not an opponent but your own team. Everybody except one player writes a one-word clue to the mystery word — and then the clues are compared, and everything that matches is struck out. The guesser sees only what is left.
Hence the whole calculation. The most accurate clue is usually the most obvious one, which means somebody else will write it and both will go. Too clever a clue survives and does not help. Each player writes weighing not only "what explains the word" but "what will occur to the others" — and no consulting is allowed.
You play not against one another but together against the deck: thirteen cards, and at the end you count how many you took.
Word cards
Under these rules: A hundred and ten cards of five words; thirteen are taken for a game.
A hundred and ten cards, five numbered words on each.
Five words to a card are there so that the active player can call a number without knowing any of them: which word is set is decided by a random figure, not by a choice. Thirteen cards are taken from the deck for a game, and that is what sets its length.
The easel
Under these rules: An easel, an erasable pencil and a cloth per player.
A folding stand written on with an erasable pencil; it also holds the card.
The easel stands like a tent, turned towards the others, so what is written on it is visible to everyone but the player holding it. Its lip holds the card up — that is how the active player shows a word they cannot see themselves. Clues are written with an erasable pencil and wiped off with a cloth: each easel is used a dozen times in a game. A cancelled clue is hidden by simply laying the easel down on the table.
Rules of Just One
What you need
A hundred and ten cards, and an easel, an erasable pencil and a cloth for each player.
Setup
Everyone takes an easel, a pencil and a cloth. The deck is shuffled and thirteen cards are taken from it at random — that is the game; they go face down in the middle of the table.
The first is chosen at random.
A round
A round runs in five phases.
1. Select the mystery word
The active player takes the top card without looking at it and places it on their easel so that everyone but them can read it.
They then call a number from one to five. The word under that number is the .
If the others do not know that word, they may ask for a different number.
2. Write clues
Everyone except the active player secretly writes one clue on their easel. A clue is exactly one word.
A compound word, a proper noun, a number, an onomatopoeia, an acronym and even a single special character are all valid.
Not valid:
- the mystery word in another language;
- a word in the same family as the mystery word;
- a made-up word;
- a homophone of the mystery word.
3. Compare clues
Once everyone has written, the active player closes their eyes. The rest reveal their easels to one another and compare.
All identical and all invalid clues are . Identical covers not only the same word but words of the same family, the same word in the singular and the plural, and the same word with and without a misspelling.
A cancelled clue is hidden by laying the easel down on the table.
If every last clue has been cancelled, the card goes back in the box and the round ends there.
4. Guess
The active player opens their eyes and sees the surviving clues. They have a single guess.
- Correct. The round is won; the card is placed face up beside the deck.
- Pass. The round is lost; the card goes back in the box.
- Wrong. The round is lost twice over: this card and the top card of the deck both go back in the box. If the deck is empty, a card already won is removed instead.
5. End of the round
Everyone takes their easel back and erases their clue. The player to the left of the active player becomes the new active player, and a new round begins.
End of the game
The game ends once the deck of thirteen cards is empty. Count the cards won:
| Cards | Level |
|---|---|
| 0–3 | What happened? |
| 4–6 | Not bad. You could do better |
| 7–8 | Average. A good start |
| 9–10 | Good |
| 11 | Very good |
| 12 | Impressive |
| 13 | A perfect score |
With three and four players
The rules are the same, but more clues are needed, or nothing will survive the cancelling.
Each player takes two easels — except the active player, who needs one to hold the card. In the clue phase each writes a different clue on each of their easels, two instead of one.
Sources
- Just One — rules · Repos Production Open source
Glossary of terms
- Cancelling
- Removing a clue before it is shown: identical and invalid clues are taken away, and the guesser never sees them.
- The active player
- The one guessing this round. They hold the card turned away from themselves and cannot see the word.
- The mystery word
- One of the five words on the card — the one whose number the active player called.