Linq (2004)

US-edition

publisher: Endless Games

From Publisher Website: 4 Cards... 1 Pair... 100 reasons why you SHOULD be right. It's not a word game. It's not a strategy game. It's not a bluffing game, yet all three of these elements are combined in this uniquely simple, excitingly fun, and extremely addictive game: Linq. The object of the game is to guess which two players are the Linq. If you are the Linq, you must think like your partner, and connect with them. The only problem is... You don't know who your partner is!

German edition

artwork: Sebastian Wagner
editor: Andrea Meyer
publisher: BeWitched-Spiele
game length: ca. 45 minutes

Linq combines bluff elements with associative gaming. 4-8 players ages 10 and up try to find their ever changing partners by associating freely to their LINQ-words. An intuitive scoring mechanism shows who was best able to linq with the others in the end.

The game contains 58 card pairs with nearly 700 words, 4 question marks, wooden pieces for counting points, a 12-sided die, and the rulebook.

French edition

artwork: Pierre Lechevalier (aka Piero)
publisher: In Ludo Veritas

Two spies have to meet each other. All they have in common is a password.

All the others players are counterspies triyng to identify and confuse them.

The game contains 2 * 50 spy cards with 10 words each (500 different passwords ),
10 counterspy cards, counters, rulebook

Awards

• 2008 Spiel des Jahres Recommendation.
• 2010 As d'or - Jeu de l'annee Nomination.
• 2010 Bruno Faidutti's Game of the Year

Where does the game name come from?

Here is what the designer Erik Nielsen says:

It's pronounced "LINK" with a hard "K". It's a device I toyed with that I would call a "purposeful conversational hurdle." When you're talking about the game and you say "it's called Linq... "spelled with a Q", the person across from you gets perplexed - and the whole point of the game was to make people think about words differently. So, I took the word that summarizes the epitome of the game (Link, e.g. to connect/link with someone), and bended the spelling to both (1) name the game, and (2) to create a new word that means what the game is all about: the lense through which you describe the world is your own. Take the time to examine the lenses of others, and you'll discover an even more interesting world that exists.