StopPhone
Posted on November 9th, 2011
by David Elliot

STOPPHONE (Not final name)
By Justin Rabanales

Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Materials
III. How to Play/Rules
IV. Points
V. What are points for?

1. Introduction
In this game of Stoplight and Telephone, One can use their drawing, communication and charade skills to try to deliver a given message to their team mates. However, sending the message is harder than one would expect. The players cannot directly say the word in which they are told to send to their team, but have to give hints!

II. Materials
There can be as many teams as one pleases, however every team needs an equal set of flash cards which will be used to challenge the other team. A given word or set of words will be given to a team in forms of flash cards. The flash cards will have the words that are going to be used in the game. However, the words that follow under the first word are words that the other players cannot say or else they will be penalized. If a teammate tries to help the player that is trying to tell the players the word, they will be charged point.

A match is consisted of 4 rounds, if teams tie up and win one round but lose the other there will be a third round played to determine who the winner is. A round is over when a team’s 60 second limit has diminished. A match’s winner will be determined by whoever wins the most rounds.

The objective of the game is to deliver words to another person in your team without saying the words within sixty seconds. However every ten seconds the other team can tell you to change the way you send the message. Every time the player finishes a word they can choose what the next way of sending the word will be.

There are three different ways that a team can communicate the message. The first way to send the message is by speaking. When one is told to speak , the only thing they can do is speak the message. Let’s say there is a word like “DOG”, the player can only use their voice to send this message, however since the player cannot directly say the word then the word “DOG” is the one word they cannot say, they can give hints such as saying things like. “Animal” , “barks” and “man’s best friend”.

The second way to send the message, is by drawing it out. When a player is told to draw, they are giving a marker and use a blank white board and start drawing objects and synonyms to the word. For example let’s use the word “DOG” again, this time instead of speaking one would draw it. The player has 10 seconds to draw things that can describe a dog, Doghouses, bones, fire hydrates, etc.

Last but not least is the body command. Now the player cannot speak nor draw but has to use their body to transfer the message. For example let’s use the word “DOG” one last time, the player is now suppose to take a role of a dog, barking, sniffing and “wagging a tail” are now all acceptable. The team that can transfer the most messages by a certain amount of time wins the game. However, if a player miscommunicates a message they can be penalized. If a team “sends” the message they will receive a point.

III. How to Play/Rules
There can be as many teams as one pleases, however every team needs an equal set of flash cards which will be used to challenge the other team. A given word or set of words will be given to a team in forms of flash cards. The flash cards will have the words that are going to be used in the game. However, the words that follow under the first word are words that the other players cannot say or else they will be penalized. If a teammate tries to help the player that is trying to tell the players the word, they will be charged point.

IV. Points
There are many ways to gain points, first is to simply send the message. Next, If the players have no errors sending the message they will receive a point. Third, if a team has extra time left after a round when they finish sending a message, they will receive one point for every two seconds that they spared. For every word you finish within the 60 seconds you will receive points.

V. What are points for?
Every round after a team finishes a word, they can use of their hard earned points to cripple the team in several different ways. A team can throw in random words to the opposing team to throw them off. Another is by cutting off a way to describe the word. EX: the other team cannot use verbs or adjectives or no nouns. The next way to cripple a team is by making them go through a round only being able to describe it using only one part of speech.