Scorpion Masqué | Decrypto Game | Board Game | Ages 12+ | 3-8 Players | 30 Minutes Playing Time

Product Information

If they're correct, they receive a white mark of success; if not, then my team must guess the number correctly or take a black mark of failure. The game comes with plenty of sheets on the pads for players to track information and these are nicely laid out with lots of places to track the clues from the opposing team. Decrypto is featured in our blog about great party games for small groups - read the full post here.

The words are occasionally a little American-centric but that doesn't really affect gameplay as the actual words are less important than their definition. Those games are often fun – there’s no judgment here – but they don’t hold tension throughout the experience in the same way. One element which does really help you understand clues and the game structure is playing with people and group that you are familiar with, knowing the individual’s think patterns and ways of working, as you may then understand more of the abstract clues, but the game is equally, if not more, fun playing with people you have never met – trying to deduce the meaning being the clue. It gets you thinking fast and looking for ways to describe words you’d probably never have thought of before. The clues given are pretty difficult, sure, but if you already know that the clues “PLANET” and “HOT” have been given for 1, it might be easier to assume that 1 is Mercury and act from there.

Everyone has their in-jokes and secret references, which they try to bust out at just the right moment. What really separates this from your every day party game is that once you move to the next round, each team then gives clues so the opposing team may try to guess. Set in a world of dials, monitors, transmitters and other 1960’s James Bond-style spy paraphernalia, Decrypto is a "scramble communication" game: you must give clues to your teammates that are precise enough, so they can understand you, but vague enough, to make sure your opponents don't get the message. Decrypto, cracking its way into your local FLGS April 19th from the good folks at Le Scorpion Masque (and Iello Games), has solved the puzzle of how to get me to enjoy a short, focused party game. The rounds continue until a team collects either its second white mark (winning the game) or its second black mark (losing the game).

The idea for the game is you each have a private encryption / decryption key (linking 4 random words to the numbers 1-4), and you use them to try to transmit a 3-digit number to your team while the opposing team tries to figure out your encryption and intercept your messages. to send, you might encrypt it by saying to your team: "sand, scoot, secret" and they'd associate the words with the positions and read out the number. You cannot use your keywords as clues, give clues that relate to the spelling, position, or pronunciation of a keyword, or use a clue more than once per game.If it sounds like the other team knows your keyword, you have to figure out a way to throw them off. Decrypto is a relatively family friendly game with some complex/more challenging word/encryption cards which can easily be removed or swapped with other charges. This game is so much fun, makes you think and gets much harder as you keep playing as you are trying to outwit your opponents. Yeah, sounds like they prioritized actually finishing the licensed ones to me by giving up on the other ones (and asking for additional money).

Domestika on using python to do generative art and then realized the whole thing was in Portugese with subtitles. The teams then switch roles, and go through it again, this time with the active team as the inactive team and vice-versa. These failed code guesses are what dock you points and make your opponents even MORE likely to win, meaning you have to expertly walk the line between vague and incomprehensible, as if trying to pass some sort of lexical sobriety test. If you’re looking for a fun and smart game for a group of 4-8 folks, this is a game I would highly recommend.If the team fail to get the code this means communication has broken down and you receive one black token, if you receive two of these token in the game your team loses due to poor communication. But when that group is around, this is one I would always suggest playing (at nearly every possible opportunity). Part of the fun for some party games is when you have people who don’t know each other too well or (even better) live on either side of the pond.