Cipher
Twenty-five words on the table and one handler on each side who knows which ones are theirs. All they may say is one word and a number. Touch the wrong word and it is over.
How it works
One person opens kutuverse.com and creates a room. Everyone else joins by scanning the QR code or opening the link — on a phone, a tablet or a laptop, whatever they already have. Nobody makes an account, nobody downloads anything, and the game runs directly between your devices rather than on a company's server.
Short of players? Add computer players to fill the table, or play the whole thing on one device and pass it round.
How to play Cipher
Your side has agents hidden among twenty-five words. Find them all before the other side finds theirs — and never touch the mole.
Handlers see the key and say one word and one number. The word may not be any word still face up on the table. The number is how many of your words your clue points at.
Field agents tap the words they think their handler meant. A word of your own colour lets you keep going. A bystander or one of theirs ends your turn. The mole ends everything.
You may always take one guess more than the number, to find a word from an earlier clue.
Handlers: keep a straight face, and say nothing else. One word, one number — that is the whole game.
Computer handlers clue with what their words have in common. Computer agents follow a clue they understand and take their chances with one they don't.