Blind Panic – Rules

Blind Panic! Rules of the game

Team game for 4-12 players, 12 years to adult.

Contents

Game board; Pawn bag; Playing pawns (4); Topic Box (300 cards, 1,200 Topics); 'In Sight' wallets (12); ‘Blind’ wallets (12); 'Poison Chalice' wallets (12); Panic Button (50 second timer); Rules

Object of the game

Be the first team to reach HOME. You move by successfully identifying TOPICS and moving to the value shown on the TOPIC cards.

How to score

Take turns as Speaker, helping your team correctly guess up to five TOPICS during your 50-second turn. Each card has a TOPIC marked with your team colour and a point value of 2, 3 or 4.

  1. Give clues for the TOPIC as a whole, but your team only need to guess any word or words underlined.
  2. Clues must be EXAMPLES of the whole TOPIC.
  3. You may not say any form of the words underlined or give general non-topic-related clues to the words underlined. You may however indicate to your team if they are almost there, using words such as 'close form of' or 'the person, not the thing'.
  4. You may PASS on any card, but you may not return to it.
  5. At the end of the round any TOPIC you have passed, broken a rule on, or your team has failed to guess will incur a penalty deduction of 1 point each from your total for the turn.

Preparing to play

Make up 2, 3 or 4 teams with the same number of players as far as possible. If there is an odd number of players, one team may have an extra member.

Put all pawns in the bag and make a blind selection of a pawn to represent your team. You will be guessing TOPICS coded with the same colour as your pawn. Place your team pawn on START.

Each player needs an ‘In Sight’ wallet, a ‘Blind’ wallet and a ‘Poison Chalice’ wallet.

Deal out five cards face down from the front of the TOPIC BOX to each player. (If one team has an extra player, one of that team in each round takes a rest from being a Speaker and is not dealt any cards, though they still take part in guessing answers. Rotate the 'resting' role around that team for each round.)

Hit the Panic Button. You will have 50 seconds before the buzzer sounds. In that time you must:

  1. Place one card unseen in your 'Blind' wallet. Don't look at this until you have started your turn.
  2. Review the other four cards without revealing them to other players. Carefully check the TOPICS that are coded with your team colour. The value of each card is printed at the top.
  3. Place two of the cards in your ‘In Sight’ wallet. Try to choose TOPICS of your team colour that you are confident your team can guess.
  4. Place the other two cards in your ‘Poison Chalice’ wallet. Hold up that wallet and call Ready!
  5. When everyone is ready swap your 'Poison Chalice' wallet with one held by an opposing player. 

PLEASE NOTE:

  1. a) The first player to complete their preparation and call Ready! will be the first Speaker. After that the turns will pass clockwise from team to team until the end of the round.
  2. b) Any player who has not completed their preparation before the buzzer sounds will miss their turn as Speaker for that round. They must still put two cards in their 'Poison Chalice' wallet and make them available for the round, and they can still take part in guessing TOPICS.

Playing your turn as Speaker

Work through the wallets in any order you wish, but as soon as you take a card from a wallet it is 'in play'. Hit the Panic Button just before you draw out the first TOPIC card.

Tackle only TOPICS coded with your team colour. Describe and give EXAMPLES of the whole TOPIC on the card. You may not read the next card until either:

  1. a) The team correctly identifies the underlined words on the TOPIC; or
  2. b) You choose to PASS. You may not return to a TOPIC once you have moved on.

Your turn stops as soon as the buzzer sounds. Review the cards and score your team as follows:

  1. Add the value of all correctly identified TOPICS.
  2. Deduct 1 point for every TOPIC unidentified or passed, or on which you broke a rule. (Other teams to check you obeyed the rules.) Cards remaining in wallets are not 'in play' and do not count.
  3. Move the team’s pawn forward (or back if it is a negative value) in line with the score. Note: a pawn cannot be moved further back than START.

Turns continue clockwise from team to team. The round ends when all Speakers have had their turn. At the end of a round all cards are returned to the back of the TOPIC BOX. (Check your wallets for any left in there.)

The ensuing rounds are played in the same way, until a team reaches or passes HOME to win the game. However, there are help and hazard zones to negotiate on your way around the board.

TIME WARP

If you start a turn while your team pawn is in this zone you may have extra time at the end of your turn to complete a TOPIC you have started but the team has not yet identified.

ON THE DOUBLE

If you start a turn while your team pawn is in this zone you will score double the value for every successful answer, but deductions from your score will also be double the value.

BLIND ALLEY

If you start a round while your team is in this zone no member of the team may see any of the cards dealt to you at the start of that round. Put them randomly into your three wallets (one in the ‘Blind’ wallet, two in each of the other wallets) without looking at any of them.

PANIC STATION

At the end of a turn, if your score lands your team pawn in this zone, the player who has just been acting as Speaker immediately hits the Panic Button, picks out the next card from the front of the box, and tackles all four TOPICS from the same card. If your team successfully identifies all four TOPICS before the time is up, you immediately move forward to HOME and win the game. If your team fails to answer all four TOPICS correctly before the buzzer sounds, you immediately move back 4 spaces for each topic missed and the next turn begins as normal. In the PANIC STATION the printed value of the card is ignored.

Some comments from game testers 

'The panic button really does make you panic, from the time that the voice calls Blind Panic! Start now. The fact that there's no countdown, no indication that the time may or may not be nearly up increases the tension, both in selecting the topics for the wallets and later in describing or answering them.'

'The zones add a real jeopardy element - they're fun.'

'One of those games that doesn't need quizzer knowledge - and that's a plus for me.'

'My favourite game to date has been Articulate. I think this has a similar feel, but it's better.'