Forbidden
Describe the word. Not with those words, you do not.
Get your team to say the word on the card. You may not say the word, and you may not say any of the five words printed under it, which are always exactly the five you were about to use.
- Players
- 4 to 12 players
- Usually takes
- About 15 minutes
- What it plays from
- Words and phrases
- Ways to play
- Online room, Party screen
How it plays
One player describes, their team guesses, and somebody on the other team watches the card and buzzes the moment a banned word slips out. The clock is short and the cards keep coming, so the round is a scramble rather than a think. It is the format that most rewards knowing the people you are playing with, because a shared reference is worth more than a good vocabulary. The recap at the end shows every card and what happened to it.
What happens in a round
Straight from the game itself: these are the phases the room moves through, in order, with the clock each one starts on.
Your turn
Take the phone, check who has the buzzer, then start the clock.
45 seconds
Describe it
Get the word across without saying it, or any of the words under it.
1 minute
How that went
Every card from the round, and what happened to it.
20 seconds
Final scores
Here is how the two teams finished.
Ends when the room is ready
Who it suits
- Two teams who want something loud and quick
- Groups of four to twelve
- Rooms where somebody enjoys being the referee
How you can play it
Online room
Everybody on their own phone, in the same room or three hundred miles apart. Guests join with a four letter code and no download.
Party screen
The telly or a laptop shows the game to the whole room. Phones become controllers, so nobody has to squint at somebody else’s screen.
Play it with your own words
Every format runs on a deck, and you can write your own. A deck you make is yours to share with your family by code straight away. Anything you publish to strangers is read by a moderator first.
Play it tonight
Koven is in beta. Leave your email and we will send you a link when there is space, or open the player if somebody has already given you a room code.
Join the waitlist Open the player
Free on the free tier, like every other format in Koven.