How to Play

Objective

You've made contact with an Alien from deep space. To understand each other, your team of Scientists must decipher the Alien's three secret words — and the Alien must guess yours. Score points based on how many words each side can guess, and how many letters of the Alien's cipher the Scientists can figure out.

The game is cooperative. Everyone on the Scientist side wins or loses together. (The Alien is an LLM here, not a human player.)

The Cipher

Every game uses a six-letter cipher shared by both sides. It is private to each side — Scientists know they share one with the Alien but don't see its contents; deducing it is half the game.

• Trust (3 letters): each adds +1 to a word's score per occurrence.
• Amplify (2 letters): each multiplies the score × 2 per occurrence.
• Suspicion (1 letter): if present in the word, negates the final score.

Cipher composition rules: trust = 1 common + 2 uncommon-or-tough. Amplify = 1 common + 1 uncommon-or-tough. Suspicion can be any color. Maximum 1 red (tough) letter across the entire cipher.

Letter colors are shown on the alphabet grid: green common, grey uncommon, red tough.

Cipher Scoring

For each transmitted word:

1. Count trust letters in the word: that's the base score.
2. Multiply by 2 for each amplify letter present (with multiplicity).
3. If the suspicion letter appears anywhere in the word, negate the result.

Examples with cipher trust = E, P, H, amplify = R, X, suspicion = O:

• CHOPPER: 4 trust (P, H, P, E) × 2 (R) × −1 (O) = −8
• HORCRUXES: 2 trust (H, E) × 2 (R) × 2 (R) × 2 (X) × −1 (O) = −16
• BORAX: 0 trust × 2 (R) × 2 (X) × −1 (O) = 0

Convention: the negative of 0 is 0 — so a 0 score gives no information about the suspicion letter.

Transmissions

The game is 4 rounds. Each round both sides exchange a clue:

1. The Alien transmits a word; the system scores it against the cipher and shows the score to both sides.
2. The Scientists transmit a word back; the system scores it the same way.

A transmission can be any English word except words on (or derived from) your own side's message card.

Try to pick words semantically related to your secret words — that's how the other side will guess them at the end. If one of your words is elephants, a clue like PACHYDERM or DUMBO points at it.

Final Guess

After 4 rounds:

1. The Scientists' message card is revealed. The Alien guesses one word per column.
2. The Alien's message card is revealed. The Scientists guess one word per column.
3. The Scientists guess the cipher: which 3 letters are trust, which 2 are amplify, which 1 is suspicion.

Each correct guess is worth 1 point. A perfect score is 12 points: 3 Alien word guesses + 3 Scientist word guesses + 6 cipher letters.

Convention Column

Scientists and the Alien follow an unspoken convention so they can tell which column a clue is aimed at:

• Round 1 clues → Column A
• Round 2 clues → Column B
• Round 3 clues → Column C
• Round 4 is free — usually a cipher-utility clue to expose remaining letters

It's a strong default, not a hard rule. Use it when picking targets.

Tips & Reminders

• If a word scores 0, no letter in it is trust. Rule them all out.
• If a word scores odd, no letter in it is amplify (amplify doubles, which makes scores even).
• If a word scores negative, one of its letters must be the suspicion letter. Intersect with other negatives to narrow down.
• If a word scores 6, it's either 3 trust + 1 amplify, or 6 trust letters. Use letter availability to decide.
• There can only be 1 red letter in the cipher — if you've identified it, rule out every other red.
• Trust and amplify each contain exactly 1 green letter — once you've confirmed it, the other greens are out for that role.

Linguist Ranks

When you join a room you pick a rank. It affects how much the system helps you:

• Junior Linguist: auto-assists run the deduction rules above for you — score-0 letters get ruled out from trust, odd-score letters from amplify, negative-clue intersections become suspicion candidates, etc.
• Intermediate Linguist: no auto-assists. You mark the alphabet grid by hand.
• Cunning Linguist: the Alien may pick more oblique clues against you. Same UI as Intermediate.

SOL — Save Our Letters

If at least one Junior is in the game, you get a single SOL button. SOL asks the LLM (on your side) to suggest a clue word and a target. Once per game. Use it when you're stuck on what to transmit.

Suggestions & Notes

Above the Transmit input, anyone in the room can post a suggested word with their name and (optionally) which secret word it targets. Other Scientists can click Send to actually transmit it.

Under every transmission you can add a note visible to the whole room — useful for "this score-0 word rules out U, M, Y" style annotations.