Less Is More Board Game: Rules for How to Play

Objective

The objective of Less Is More is to score the most points by giving short clues that help other players guess the mystery words.

Setup

Shuffle all of the cards and place the cards in the middle of the table.
Each player takes an erasable marker and word board.
Find a 60 second timer to use in the game.
Whoever provided the timer for the game starts the game as the first Guesser.

How to Play Less Is More

You will play a number of rounds equal to the number of players. For example if there are five players you will play five rounds.

To start each round the player to the left of the Guesser draws the top card from the deck. The Guesser picks a number 1-6. The number they choose determines which word on the card will be the Mystery Word for the current round. All of the players besides the Guesser look at the card to find out the Mystery Word.

Card for Less is More — The current Guesser chose the number three for this round. The rest of the players have to come up with as short of clue as they can for the word “board game”.

Coming Up With a Clue

After seeing the Mystery Word, all of the players (besides the Guesser) try to think of a clue to give the Guesser to try and help them guess the Mystery Word. The objective is to try and come up with the shortest clue that you can come up with. You can write down a whole word(s), word fragments, or abbreviations. There are a couple of restrictions on what you can write down for your clue:

You can use any of the 26 letters in the English alphabet.
Spaces are allowed.
You cannot use Morse code, wingdings, symbols, numbers, punctuation marks, drawings, or other symbols.
You cannot use any part of the Mystery Word in your clue. You can use individual letters from the Mystery Word though.

Using dice as a clue for board game — For the word board game, this player decided to use the clue “dice”.

When you have written down your clue, you will count the number of letters in it. Write the number in the colored circle on your board. You will then start the timer. The rest of the players have 60 seconds to finish writing down their clue.

Writing down the number of letters in a clue — This player’s clue of “dice” has four letters. They will write 4 on the yellow circle.

Guessing the Mystery Word

Once the timer runs out all of the players turn the circle on their board so the rest of the players can see the number of letters used by each player. The players will get to reveal their clues to the Guesser in order by the number of letters used. The player that used the least letters gets to show their clue first. If two or more players used the same number of letters, the player sitting closest to the Guesser’s left reveals their clue first followed by the other tied players in clockwise order.

Determining the order of the clues — The yellow player used the least letters so they will get to show their clue first. Since the red/pink and blue players both used five, the player closest to the left of the Guesser gets to reveal their clue. They will be followed by the other player who used five letters. The purple player will reveal their clue last as they used the most letters.

When you show your clue to the Guesser, you can only show the clue. You can’t give any other hints to the Guesser. They will then get to make a guess. If they guess correctly, the current round ends and the rest of the players don’t get to share their clues. The Guesser and the player that provided the clue that got them to guess correctly both receive points. They will both receive points equal to the number of players minus the number of clues given in the current round. For example if there are five players and two clues were given, both players score three points.

Guessing the word in Less Is More — After receiving the clue chess, the guesser was able to figure out board game. This was their second clue. Since there are five players and it took two clues, the guesser and the player who wrote down chess both receive three points.

If the Guesser does not guess the right Mystery Word, the player with the clue with the next least letters gets to reveal their clue. This continues until the Guesser guesses the Mystery Word, or all of the clues have been given.

Players can decide how close the Guesser needs to be to the Mystery Word in order for it to count.

To start the next round you will erase all of the boards. The role of Guesser moves one player to the left for the next round.

Winning the Game

The game ends after each player has had one turn as the Guesser. The player that scored the most points wins.

Less Is More FAQ

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

6 Erasable Markers
6 Erasable Word Boards
100 Cards
Instructions

Year: 2021 | Publisher: Spin Master | Designer: Ralf zur Linde | Artist: Matt Naylor

Genres: Party, Word

Ages: 10+ | Number of Players: 3-6 | Length of Game: 20 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light-Moderate | Luck: Moderate

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.