Quicktionary

Gameplay

The object of the game of Quicktionary is simple: be the first person to shout out a word that fits all three conditions laid out by the three different cards. Each set comes with 34 each of yellow, blue, and red cards. Each card has a condition on it: a yellow card might say “associated with science” or “associated with vacations”; a blue card might say “has an even number of letters” or “has exactly two syllables”; a red card might say “contains the letter H” or “contains the letters MO.”

Together, the three cards in play provide a set of rules, and the first player to shout out a word that follows all three rules takes one of the three cards of their choice and keeps it—it signifies a “point”—and replaces it with a new card of the same color. The game continues with the new rule in play.

If at any point all participating players agree that no word they can think of satisfies all three conditions, all three cards are placed in a discard pile and three new ones replace them. Proper nouns like cities, countries, and names are all allowed!

The player with the most points in the end wins! You can play to a number of points, until one stack of cards runs out, or as my brothers and I enjoy playing it, until there are no cards left, meaning the last few turns are simply ruled by “contains two syllables” or “does not contain the letter L!”

History

Game designers over at Forrest-Pruzan Creative, the parent company of Prospero Hall, invented Quicktionary in 2017. Prospero Hall was acquired by Funko Games in 2019. Chronicle Books remains the publisher of the game, however.