Contour Echo

How to play

1. 1

   Contour Echo supports 3–12 players. With 3–5 players everyone is Guide twice; with 6–12 everyone is Guide once. The server shuffles complete cycles without repeating the Guide where two cycles meet.

2. 2

   At the start of a round, the Guide has 45 seconds to privately choose a Source from three original abstract cards and enter an association of 2–60 characters and no more than eight words. A separate confirmation locks the card and text together.

3. 3

   After confirmation, every Seeker sees the association and three private full-color cards. They have 30 seconds to choose one Echo that fits the clue; other candidates and the Source remain hidden.

4. 4

   A missed Echo is replaced by one of that Seeker’s cards so the gallery size cannot reveal their absence. The automatic Echo remains in play but earns its owner no points from other players’ choices.

5. 5

   During the 25-second contour stage, the Source and every Echo form a shuffled anonymous gallery with all colors and textures removed. Each Seeker locks an initial Source guess and cannot choose their own Echo. Anyone who misses the outline cannot act in color and earns 0 for the search. If nobody chooses an outline, the color stage is skipped and the round ends immediately with no points.

6. 6

   Colors and textures then appear for 20 seconds without moving the cards. A Seeker explicitly keeps the initial guess or changes it once; without a final confirmation the server keeps the contour guess but awards no confidence bonus.

7. 7

   A correct final Source earns a Seeker 160 points. Correctly finding it by contour and explicitly confirming the same card in color adds 80, for a maximum search award of 240.

8. 8

   The owner of a manually chosen Echo earns 60 points for each Seeker whose final guess lands on that card, capped at 180 per round. A Seeker can never choose their own Echo.

9. 9

   Let V be the Seekers with a final guess and C the correct guesses. The Guide earns 0 when V is below 2, C is 0, or C equals V; otherwise the award is 120 + 40 × min(C, V − C), capped at 320, rewarding a clue that is readable but not obvious.

10. 10

    All confirmations stay private until a 15-second reveal, which the host may advance after 4. Spectators receive no secrets or action tokens; server timers, roles, and requests survive reconnects without duplicate moves or scoring, and tied leaders share the victory.