The mystery of the Platypus

We went to a games bar in Bordeaux (https://www.lilaandthebarber.com/) and they had this game – but no rulebook. The game consists of two decks of cards (orange goal cards and blue adjective cards), a puck (to indicate the guesser), a set of cards numbered one to eight and a board like so:

Finn ended up making our own rules, with a bit of modification from me, and we thoroughly enjoyed playing, giggling like mad. It was the three of us, so we had one guesser and two (clue) givers.

Setup

The board is placed between all the players and eight goal cards are dealt to be set up around the board. The goal cards are famous people, places or things (for example, we had Charles de Gaulle, Marteau piqueur and Hôpital because we were playing in French). Everyone takes five adjective cards.

Play

The guesser shows the givers one of the number cards to be that round’s goal. Each giver picks the card from their hand that most closely resembles the chosen goal (not often an exact match. In the pictures above, if the chosen goal was 7 – Slaughterhouse, I would probably pick Stinky from my adjectives). Then the guesser guesses and the puck passes to the next player. If right, the guesser takes the goal card. The givers take an adjective card to replace the one played and the game continues.

Our idea was that the first person to get to ten goal cards was the winner. It was a lot of fun and I’d really like to buy the game to try it with other combinations of players, maybe four or five, still with one guesser. I think it would make a good party game, especially if you’re a little tipsy.

Bonus

Extra touch: we decided that everyone has to tell a story with the name cards they’ve won. Mine tonight was Albert Einstein got very old and couldn’t tell the difference between a slug and a dragon. The cards I won are in bold.

Second extra touch: If one of the eight cards has been tried three times and not guessed, we replaced it.

The actual rules

While we were in Lila and the Barber, I tried to find the real rules for the game and failed. After more searches, I found this site that I think shows the correct rules for the game (from which I also stole the images I’ve used, sorry. I didn’t take pics while we were in the bar and I should have done). We couldn’t have had multiple guessers anyway, but I guess it would be more strategic – if less fun – to play Platypus properly.