Dixit

Libellud • 2008

Each player holds a hand of surreal, beautifully illustrated cards — dreamlike images that could mean just about anything. On your turn, you pick a card, say a clue (a word, phrase, sound, song lyric, anything), and place it face down. Everyone else picks a card from their own hand that could also fit your clue, and adds it face down. All cards are shuffled and revealed. Then everyone votes on which one they think is yours. The scoring is the clever part: if everyone guesses correctly, you were too obvious and you score nothing. If nobody guesses correctly, you were too obscure and you also score nothing. You need to land somewhere in between — cryptic enough that some people miss it, clear enough that some people get it. This creates an interesting dynamic where you're calibrating your clue to the people at the table. Your best friend might catch an obscure reference that a stranger wouldn't. The game rewards knowing your audience. The art does most of the heavy lifting. The cards are from illustrator Marie Cardouat and they're genuinely gorgeous — mysterious, symbolic, and open to interpretation. People often pause just to appreciate them. Plays 3-6, best at 5-6 where the vote spread is most interesting. At 3, it's too easy to narrow down. Games last about 30 minutes. Several expansions add more card sets if the originals get overly familiar.