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Renowned mediums are competing to figure out a secret object and prove they can connect with the “World Beyond”. The first team to figure out the secret object wins!
To set up Phantom Ink, divide players so that the Sun team and the Moon team each have one Spirit and up to three Mediums. The mediums on a team share a hand of seven question cards, and the spirits begin the game by choosing one of the five objects on a card as the secret object. On a turn, the mediums pass two question cards to their spirit, with sample questions like “What color is it most commonly?”, “What fictional character has it or uses it?”, and “If it were a musical instrument, what would it be?”
The spirit discards one question card face up, then returns the question card it’s going to answer to their mediums, then slowly writes the answer one letter at a time for all to see. As soon as the mediums think they know what this clue word is, they yell “Silencio”, and the spirit stops writing. The other team of mediums might see only the letter “Y”, but if you know the question is “What color is it?”, then you know the clue must be “yellow”. To end your turn, draw two new question cards.
On a turn, instead of handing over question cards, you can attempt to guess the answer — and to do so you write like the spirits, one letter at a time. If you write an incorrect letter, the spirits will stop you, marking out your error, with your partial guess giving the other team more information. If you guess the entire word correctly, you win!
Ages | 13+ |
---|---|
Players | 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players, 5 Players, 6 Players |
Play Time | 10m – 15m |
Designer | Mary Flanagan, Max Seidman |
Mechanics | Communication Limits, Targeted Clues, Team-Based Game, Deduction |
Theme | Party Game, Puzzle, Word Game |
Publisher | Resonym |
greenmuffins
Great party game for non-gamers. Much easier for them to wrap their head around the concept compared to Decrypto and Codenames and less downtime.
happyjosiah
Phantom Ink is a 15 minute team-based party game. Games of this nature always have a gimmick and Phantom Ink is no exception. One member of each team will be the clue-giver, and must give clues by slowly writing one letter at a time, aesthetically simulating the kinds of ghostly writing tricks that were popular around the turn of the century. The clue-giver for the team is assigned a secret word. The other members of the team then ask questions of the clue-giver, but can only do so from a hand of cards that have pre-made questions on them. For example, the secret word might be "cherry" and the team might secretly ask the question "what color is it?" At this point, the clue-giver will slowly start to write "R...E..." at which point the other team members will say "silencio", and the writing will cease. The reason that the team wants to stop the writing as soon as possible is that the opposing team will be observing all of this. And their clue-giver is competing to get their own team to figure out the very same secret word. But they are not privy to the secret question being asked, so perhaps "RE" doesn't allow them to figure out that the question being asked was about color. The teams alternate back and forth like this, in a turn-based race to figure out the secret word. The dynamic here is reminiscent of Word Slam, a favorite party game of mine. There are some opportunities for the clue-giver to creatively find just the right thing to write that will give information to only their own team. That said, the other team members are largely in the dark about what question cards will be most useful. In my admittedly limited experience, the game might actually be a bit too easy once players get the hang of it; it can have a tendency to be solved after just a clue or two from each team. Even so, Phantom Ink is an enjoyable diversion that just doesn't quite make it to the upper echelons of party game greatness.
Cheesechick
How many of these do we need??? How many am I going to keep buying, and playing??? A lot, apparently! I wish I had anything insightful to say about this game. It's nice to have a party game of this sort that works well at 4, I guess. I just enjoy it. That's all. Sorry.