Overview

In Decrypto, two teams are competing to give clever clues that allow their own team to guess a code while not giving away too much information to the opposing team. Each team has four secret words that will remain the same through the entire game, and each round, clue-givers from each team will simultaneously come up with clues for a randomly drawn 3-digit code, where each of the digits corresponds to one of their team’s words. It is important that the clues are clear enough for your own team to guess correctly, but obscure enough to prevent your opponents from intercepting the code.

Once the clue-givers are finished, the clues are revealed to both teams. The clue-giver’s team needs to guess the code, but, starting in round 2, the opposing team will also have the opportunity to try to intercept the code. If the clue-giver’s team is wrong, they take a miscommunication token, and if the opposing team’s guess is correct, they take an intercept token. Rounds are repeated until either a team loses due to miscommunicating twice, or wins due to intercepting twice.

Game Feel

The heart of Decrypto lies in the fact that your team is always cluing off of the same four words. Since the opposing team knows all of your past clues, you need to come at your words from different angles to obscure the associations with clues from earlier rounds. For example, if you used the clue “gold” for the word “ring,” you may not want to use the clue “jewelry,” as the other team may see the association between “gold” and “jewelry.” Perhaps a better clue would be “boxing” which does not seem to be related to “gold.”

This dynamic only escalates as the game continues because you have accumulated more and more clues for your words. It becomes much harder to keep your opponents off your trail when you have already given four clues for a word and need to come up with another that they won’t associate with that grouping of clues. However, since your teammates can see the four words, you have a lot of room to be vague. A clue doesn’t need to be strongly related to the target word; the connection just has to make slightly more sense than the other three options.

On the flip-side, whenever you hear your opponent’s clues for the round, your team will start discussing how those might be associated with the clues they’ve used thus far. Sometimes you will think you’ve made a connection, just to find that your guess is way off. But there are also huge “Aha!” moments when you suddenly realize the connection between a group of seemingly unrelated clues and become confident that you know one of the other team’s words.

Overview

Game Feel

FAQ