NASAGA

Welcome to NASAGA!

Look through your deck of cards and find a card or two that resonates with you. Introduce yourself to someone new at the conference and share the card you chose why you chose it.

Game Inventor

Randomly select a card from each suit:

Game Type
Game Mechanism
Audience
Theme or Flavor

Brainstorm a game with these components and discuss your ideas with others.

Word Connections

Make connections between random cards and try to get your team to guess your cards in the fewest clues before the other team gets all of their cards.

Set up

Break into 2 teams of any size (at least 2 players per team).

Shuffle the cards and deal out 16 random face-up cards in a 4 x 4 grid. These 16 cards are the pool of words that the teams need to clue. Each team will have 6 of these cards, with 4 neutral cards.

Choose a player from each side and have them sit next to each other and look at the board above. The “Randomize” button will generate a new set of team cards assignments. The “Perspective” button tilts the board on the screen, which may be useful to ensure that both clue-givers are looking at the board the same way. The “Fullscreen” button will make the board fullscreen and hide the randomize button to avoid accidentally changing the layout mid-game.

Choose who will be Blue (and go first) and who will be Green (and go second). Hit the “Randomize” button to get a new set of card assignments. Only the two cluegivers should look at the phone so that only they know the cards that belong to their team.

Starting with the Blue team clue-giver, give your teammates a one word or two-word phrase clue that applies to some of your assigned cards. After giving the clue, say “This applies to # cards” (where # is the number of cards that you hope your team will guess based on your clue).

The Blue team guessers can then discuss what they think the clue means and which cards it refers to. When they have decided on the first card to select, touch the card to indicate their guess. The clue-giver should be straight-faced and not react to the discussion or make any move towards the cards until the guessers lock in their choice. The clue-giver should always look back at the board to confirm then remove the card and either put it in front of them (if it belongs to their team), in front of the other clue-giver if it is one of theirs, or else in a neutral pile. If a card is guessed correctly, the guessing team can choose to continue and make an additional guess. As long as you continue to guess correctly, you can keep guessing.

When a neutral or the other player’s color is selected that clue-round ends, and the other clue giver takes another turn.

Rules about giving clues

Your word or word phrase clue should be about the meaning of the words or the picture on the card. Your clue should not be about the position of the cards (e.g., left side), about the suit or number of the card (e.g. Diamonds, Spades, or Jack), or about the starting letter of the card (e.g. P to clue Paddleboarding and Palindrome).
Your clues should be English words. No fair giving a French word to clue a card, unless it is a common English expression.
You can’t say any form of the words that are currently on the board.
If you give a 2-word phrase, the words must go together and not be 2 random separate clues to 2 separate words. If there is a common two-word word phrase that happens to give different information, than the clue is fine. For example, Sourpatch Kids is a common phrase that might get someone to select Apple Cider Vinegar and Ender’s Game — though it could totally fail as a clue as well.

Remember, for the game to be most successful, the clue-giver should not give non-verbal clues and should remain straight-faced throughout the game. When an unexpected card is selected, do not reveal it was not the intended one.

When the game is over, feel free to discuss what you meant by your clues and laugh about any misunderstandings or unexpected associations.

Both teams will be able to give the same number of clues. If the Blue team gets their 6th card, their turn ends and the Green team gets one last chance to tie. If the Green team is the first team to 6, the game just ends with them as the winner (both teams would have had an equal number of clues, since Blue always starts).

NASAGA Legacy

Play a standard card game (like Uno, Rummy, Hearts or Poker) with additional community contributed rules. Anyone can add new rules to take advantage of the unique cards in this deck.

Uno

Objective: Get rid of all your cards first.

Setup: Deal each player 7 cards, and then flip up a starting card. The player to the right of the dealer goes first.

Play: Play a card to the discard pile that matches the current card suit or rank.

Rummy

Objective: End your turn with all your cards in valid sets. A valid set consists of either a 3 (or more) of a kind of a card rank, or a run of 3 (or more) cards such as 4,5,6 of the same suit.

Setup: Deal each player 10 cards.

Play: Draw a card from either the deck or the top card of the discard pile and end your turn by discarding a card to the discard pile. You must discard on your winning hand.

Hearts

Objective: Score the fewest points.

Setup: Deal out all the cards evenly to the players, with the remaining cards (if any) face-down in the center. The player with the 2 of 🎲 plays first and must play the 2 of 🎲. Play continues in clock-wise order.

Play: Play a card and follow suit, if able. The highest card of the first suit played takes the trick. The winner puts all the played cards in their score pile, and then starts the next round.

Scoring: The 🎨 suit cards are all worth one point. The first player to take a trick with a point card takes in the leftover cards from the center (if any) and can look at them privately. After all cards have been played, tally up each players score. If a player takes all the points for the round, they "shoot the moon" and instead give that number to every other player and score a zero for the round. Play additional rounds until one player has over 50 points, then the lowest score wins.

Poker

Objective: To gather the most chips.

Setup: Give every player an equal amount of betting chips. Deal each player 5 cards.

Play: A round of betting can happen here and if you don't match a bet, you must fold out of the hand. The players can then exchange up to 4 cards for new cards. A second round of betting occurs. After all betting is done, the players who haven't folded out reveal their hands and the highest hand wins.

Scoring: Order of hands: 5 of a kind, Straight flush, 4 of a kind, Full House, Flush, Straight, 3 of a Kind, 2 pairs of cards, 1 pair of cards.

Submit new rules to share them with everyone.