Imagine is a game about imagination and communication, inspired by the film Inception and the games Dixit and Mysterium.
Equipment: A deck of picture cards and 3-6 players. Goal of the game:
Score points by describing pictures well enough, but not too well; and by guessing which pictures are being described.
Setup: deal 6 cards to each player, and select the first Architect The play:
The Architect may discard their hand and draw new cards for a 2 point penalty.
The Architect may pass, and the next player becomes Architect. or The Architect selects one of their cards and imagines a short description of it. The card is played face down, and the description is shared with the other players. The architect also secretly places a Stake of 0-2 points.
Each other player selects and plays, face down, whichever of their cards best matches the description given by the Architect, and also secretly places a Stake of 0-2 points.
The Architect collects the cards played, adds additional face down cards from the deck until there are at least 5 cards, shuffles the collected cards, and displays them face up.
Each other player secretly places a Bet of 0-2 points, on the card they think the architect played.
Scoring:
If all of the other players chose the architect's card, the architect gets no points, and loses their stake.
Each player who correctly bet on the architect's card scores points equal to their bet.
Each player whose card received a bet scores points equal to their stake times the number of bets.
Each player whose card received no bets loses points equal to their stake.
Next Round: Add all the played cards to the discard pile. Deal new cards from the draw pile until each player has 6 cards. The next player becomes the Architect.
End of game: The length of the game depends on the number of players.
5-6 players, each player has 2 opportunities to be the architect.
4 players, each player has 3 opportunities to be the architect.
3 players, each player has 4 opportunities to be the architect.
Fine Print:
If all players pass, the game is over.
The discard pile will be reshuffled whenever more cards are needed for the deck.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained; it's possible to always play a zero stake and place a zero bet: you will end the game with a score of zero.
