Welcome to the Wavelength Game!
Game Summary

Wavelength is a social guessing game where two teams compete to read each other’s minds. Teams take turns rotating a dial to where they think a target is located along a spectrum that’s hidden behind a screen. One player from the active team—the Psychic—knows where the target is, but can only give a clue ON THE SPECTRUM between two opposing concepts. After that, their teammates have to guess where the target is.

Setup Notes

Divide into 2 teams of roughly the same size. Then decide who on those teams will be the Psychics (clue givers) for the first round. We call the teams Left Brain and Right Brain.

Psychic Phase

Each round begins with the current team’s Psychic drawing a wavelength card and giving a clue ON THE SPECTRUM between the two concepts on the card. The Psychic should do this secretly, so players on both teams can’t see where the target is. Here’s the order the Psychic should go in:

  1. Choose a wavelength: Draw 1 wavelength card. Don’t think too hard about it: just pick the one you find most interesting! Read the card text so both teams can hear.
  2. Peek at the screen: Using the PEEK button, peek and look at where the target is located while ALL players from both teams are looking away. Only you the Pyschic should see where the target it. When you have memorised the target's location, click the PEEK button again to cover the screen and allow all players to view the board again.
  3. Give a clue: Look at where the target’s centre is located spatially along the visible area of the wheel. Now think of a clue that is conceptually where the target is located ON THE SPECTRUM between the two concepts on your card. Rules for how to give clues can be found below.
Now the Psychic stops communicating ENTIRELY! After the Psychic has given their clue, they are no longer allowed to say ANYTHING—not even clarifications—and must keep an entirely straight face. If a Psychic ever gives away the target location after giving their clue, either verbally or nonverbally, it’s up to everyone playing to decide whether to penalize the team. We tend to just let the Psychic give a new clue with a new card and target location, but we’re generous that way.

Team Phase

After the Psychic gives their clue, it’s up to the rest of their team to READ THEIR MIND and turn the dial as close to the center of the target area as they can. This is the core of the game and it is almost entirely free of rules: teammates can discuss, debate, and argue in any way they like. After the Psychic’s team has come to an agreement, they let the other team know that they’ve finalised their dial position.

Left/Right Phase

In Wavelength, BOTH teams always have a chance to score points from a clue. After the Psychic’s team has finalised their dial position, the other team gets to guess whether the centre of the target is to the left or right of the dial. This discussion should be fairly brief, since it’s a simple binary choice: LEFT or RIGHT. The team makes their guess by placing the marker in either the LEFT or RIGHT slot next to the wavelength card. For example, if the card was HOT|COLD and the team guessed LEFT, it would indicate they think the Psychic meant to convey something MORE HOT than the current team guessed.

Scoring Phase

Once both teams have finalised their guesses, it’s time for the most exciting part of the game: THE REVEAL. The Psychic clicks the GUESS button in the centre of the dial to reveal the target. Their team scores points if the dial is within the colored target area, as listed on the colored wedges (2-4 points). The other team scores 1 point if they correctly guessed whether the target is to the left or right of the final dial position. If the Psychic’s team guessed perfectly (the 4 point wedge), the other team cannot score.

How the Game Progresses

PSYCHIC PHASE: Current team’s Psychic gives clue. TEAM PHASE: Psychic’s team discusses and turns dial. LEFT/RIGHT PHASE: Other team guesses left/right. SCORING: Psychic reveals target and points are given. Play continues like this, with teams take turns giving clues, with a new player being the Psychic each time.

Winning

Once a team has reached 10 points, the game ends—and the team with the highest score wins! If there’s a tie, each team takes a final sudden death turn. The team that scores the most points that round wins (including the LEFT/RIGHT guess). If there’s still a tie, repeat until a team has won.

Clue Giving Rules

Wavelength is all about wildly creative clues. So we tried to give players as much freedom as possible to do that. These rules are here only to restrict clue giving methods that frequently broke the game—feel free to adapt them to whatever works best for you and your friends.

  1. Convey a single thought: A clue shouldn’t combine multiple ideas or give a lot of explanatory context. Words like “AND,” “BUT,” “WHILE,” “WHO,” and “WHEN” are some- times OK, but not when they basically combine two clues together. A dead giveaway is a team debating one part of the clue, then debating the other part, and figuring out how to weigh both.
  2. Don’t “invent” something: The clue must exist as a thing in the universe outside of you giving the clue. It can be fictional, just not something you’re making up exclusively for this situation.
  3. Be on topic: Your clue has to be related to the concepts on this round’s card. You aren’t allowed to use one side as a double meaning, e.g. “hot” meaning attractive.
  4. Don’t use the words on the card or any synonyms: You can’t use words from the same “family” as those on the card.
  5. No numbers: You can’t use numbers, percentages, ratios, or anything numeric to sneakily suggest the location of the target. If a number is in the proper name of a thing, that’s OK.