Once the timer runs out, the current round of Poetry for Neanderthals ends immediately. If you scored/lost points in the round, you will move the corresponding cards from the Poet Point Slate to the corresponding spots for your team on the Team Point Slate. During this round Team Glad scoring three points from the friend and up cards. They scored one point for the tooth card. Finally they lost one point each from the fork and tutor card. The players from Team Glad moved the cards from the Poet Point Slate to the corresponding sections on the Team Point Slate. The Poet also chooses which side of the cards (gray or orange) that the players will use during the game. All of the players will use this side of the card for the entire game. You will keep playing rounds until all of the players have had one turn as the Poet. You could also choose to keep playing until all of the teams have had the same number of turns as the Poet.

Avoid saying single words and then waiting for your team to guess! Instead, try speaking in Full sentences like the example above. While factories have started to resume manufacturing, the supply chain was still disrupted because many of the ports where the game was shipped were disrupted. During this time, Exploding Kittens had to figure out how to create the initial run of Poetry for Neanderthals. One of the challenges was that you had to have a long inflatable club to play the game while social distancing (when people can do it in person). So the company had to figure out how to manufacture the inflatable club and fit it in a box that was small enough to easily ship.That’s about the extent of the rules – take turns, give clues, get bonked on the head by an inflatable club, repeat. But while the game is beautiful when it works – teammates getting on the right wavelength, clues given in seamless caveman prose – the real joy of Poetry for Neanderthals comes when things go wrong. Saying a word on the card? Bonk! Giving solid clues, but nobody getting it, so you – in frustration – resort to saying “inside” or “toilet” in frustration? Bonk! And the game goes on. I have some friends who don’t like games much. They think it’s dull, or takes too long – but last week, for the first time, they asked to play one: Poetry for Neanderthals.

Exploding Kittens also uses its physical card games as a trial for testing ideas of games that could eventually become global digital games, and so the innovation that it shows in its physical games can eventually affect the digital market. Exploding Kittens has also figured out a way that physical card games can compete with digital games during social isolation. The Poet will describe their chosen word/phrase to their teammate. They can describe it in any way they want, but they need to follow a few rules. If the Poet feels they were penalized incorrectly, they shout "WAIT!" and turn the timer on its side. Decide as a group if the challenge is valid. Then decide as a group what to do with the Poetry Card in question. Once the Poet starts describing the word/phrase, their teammates can start yelling out answers. There is no penalty for incorrect guesses, so you should try to yell out as many answers as possible. The words/phrases can be multiple syllables, so there is no punishment if a teammate says a multi-syllable word.

Coming up with the game

While the Poet is describing the word/phrase with one syllable words, one of their opponents sitting next to them is in charge of making sure that they aren’t breaking any of the rules listed above. The same goes for Poetry for Neanderthals. The goal is to score the most points by correctly interpreting words and phrases. The chosen Poet starts off the game with a Poetry Card and tries to get their teammates to say the listed word, using only words with one syllable within a 90-second time limit. You may not say a word or part of a word that appears on the current Poetry card. The one exception to this is if one of your teammates say it first. Once one of your teammates says the word (even if it is more than one syllable), the Poet is then allowed to say the word themselves. Team Glad starts the game. They will choose who on their team with be the first Neanderthal Poet. This player places the Poet Point Slate in front of themselves.

This story is also an example of game developers (some who spent most of their careers in video games) using their ingenuity to design around a big problem: We can’t hand physical cards to each other during online calls. Lee spoke about this challenge with Theresa Duringer of Temple Gates Games at our recent GamesBeat Summit 2020 event.

End of the Game

During each round the Poet and Guesser try to score as many points as they can. At the end of the round you will add up the total number of points that the Poet and Guesser earned. These points will be added to the both players’ (Poet and Guesser) past scoring totals.

They were hoarding” the prototypes, Lee said. “The videos showed them laughing hysterically. I wouldn’t go all the way to say this is an essential service, but here we are giving them a toolset to hang out, and to laugh, and enjoy themselves — all the things that are so hard to do during quarantine.”

Overview

Should you successfully get your teammates to guess the three point word, you will place the card on the corresponding section of the Poet Point Slate. The Poet got their teammates to guess the three point word. They will place the card in the three point section of the Poet Point Slate. The final issue – though it’s unlikely to come up for me, since I tend to play with the same people – is that experience is a huge advantage. As soon as you know the three-point phrase for each clue, you can leap right there, freeing up precious time to grab more cards and more points before the timer runs out. Everyone on your team can shout out words at the same time when trying to guess the word or phrase. Divide the players into two teams (Team Glad and Team Mad). You should divide the players as equally as possible. If there is an odd number of players, the extra player becomes the judge for the game.