A cooperative card game built on lateral thinking puzzles. Every card describes a situation that makes no sense. A man is found dead in a forest wearing full scuba gear, miles from the nearest ocean. One player reads the card and knows why. Everyone else asks yes-or-no questions until the whole table sees it too. In hindsight, the answer was almost obvious.
How it plays
- The Guide draws a card and reads the situation aloud
- Everyone asks yes-or-no questions, in any order. The Guide answers Yes, No, or Irrelevant
- When the sand timer runs out, the Guide reveals the next clue
- The moment it clicks, the Guide reads the solution and hands the deck to the next Guide
Why it works
Nobody keeps score. The payoff is the click, when the assumption you never noticed you were making falls away and the whole table groans at once. Some cards unravel in a minute. Others send the group down three wrong roads first. It plays at a dinner table, around a campfire, or on a long drive, and it works just as well with two people as with eight.
The base game is 36 cards. Three themed expansions add 18 more each: Consequences, Perspectives, and Extremities.
Almost Obvious grew out of Outside the Box, a lateral thinking puzzle app Stalefish Labs shipped for the iPhone in 2009.
Format: Physical card game
Status: In development