Just One and Magic Maze

Party games with limited communication!

Just One

In this three to seven player game (though you can easily add more), one player is the "guesser" and after giving a number from 1 to 5 then leaves the room while the remaining people take one of the many cards from the box which has five words and the guesser has to say the one next to the number he chose.

Now, everyone has to write down a one word clue to help him out, and the clue can't be the same word in a different language or have the answer in it (eg. if the word is King you can't use Kingdom). You can use onomatopoeia (words that sounds like something, like "Oink") but can't invent a word that just changes a letter from the target word. The tricky part is once everyone has a word, they first show it to each other and any duplicates eliminate each other on the spot.

Once there are no more duplicate words, the guesser comes back in and hopefully gets the word right! A very easy game to get people involved with a low barrier for entry, and requires zero table space. Big thumbs up for this one - recommended!

Magic Maze

In this chaotic and funny one to eight cooperative tile laying game, there are four different colored pawns trying to steal items from a fantasy mall. From the starting tile you must explore to find each of the items and each of the exits because you are always on a sand timer clock!

Of course this is not so easy because each edge is color coded and can only be explored by the pawn of that color,  all the pawns must be standing on their chosen item before any can escape, pawns can't move through each other, and players usually only have one move they can do... like... move North. That means any time any pawn needs to go that way, you need to be in charge of doing it.

The biggest challenge is that no one is meant to speak, grunt, or point! All you can do is stare intensely or use a "do something" pawn which looks like a 3D exclamation mark that you can put in front of someone. Rules also get added as you play through the 17 scenarios like having to pass your move to the player to the right and each colored pawn getting a specific ability. Easy to setup and again quite fun but as this one needs table space and isn't as welcoming as the above to non-gamers I'd have to recommend Just One over this if you are after a pure party game.