"Athenais compared it to a sconce ... Dick Tell-truth to a mat"

May 13, 2023 10:02 AM

Enlinko and Unrelated Words are solo games of semantic connections between random words. The TikTok #gotitchallenge, demoed on YouTube by Hank & John Green, is a similar 2-player game. "What is My Thought Like?" was an eloquent multiplayer game of connections between random words, once common (1786, 1789, 1790, 1806, 1831, 1849, 1855, 1858, 1863, 1867, 1871, 1875, 1904, 1913, 1917, 1922), mentioned in 1750, and essentially the same as "Le Jeu de la pensée" in 1701. But Semantle and Pimantle (previously) are semantic connection games too, according to a FAQ resembling "French Toast" and the 20 Questions variant "Plenty Questions" (co-invented by MeFi's own moonmilk and re-invented on TikTok as "Guess the Word"). 20 Questions appears in English in 1796 and 1799, maybe inspired by "Les Douze Questions" (1788).
posted by Wobbuffet (9 comments total)

Enlinko is great.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 10:38 AM on May 13, 2023

In our house we play "Infinite Questions", which allows the person thinking of the thing everybody's trying to guess to make that thing VERY specific, or bizarre, or imaginary....why not? We've got as many questions as we want to try to get it!
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 11:04 AM on May 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Our friend group plays one where 2 people say a different random word at the same time, then another 2 people say words related to both, also at the same time. The round ends when 2 people spontaneously say the same word.
posted by signal at 11:24 AM on May 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

I like both games but it sure would be nice to play them more than once per day.
posted by rollick at 12:08 PM on May 13, 2023

Sure, Unrelated Words has a "Random Puzzle" option--I think you can use it as often as you like. Enlinko's custom game feature asks you to input the puzzle words, but I think you can use it repeatedly too--and set a challenge level and send it to friends.
posted by Wobbuffet at 12:18 PM on May 13, 2023

I tried today's game and got end words "break" and "smell."

So I typed "wind" and was told it wasn't close enough to either. Clearly the game is broken.
posted by heyitsgogi at 3:40 PM on May 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yeah, Unrelated Words doesn't think "butt" is sufficiently related to "smell", so I don't know what it's doing.
posted by Jon_Evil at 4:37 PM on May 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

"Got It" requires at least two people to play. At the beginning of the game, you'll count down from 3, and each say a random word; it can be literally any word. A food, a place, an animal, an object — it can even be the name of the movie you just saw.

After counting down, you and your friend will say your words at the same time. Then, you'll try to find another word that connects to both of the words you just said. For instance, if you said "milkshake" and your friend said "Starbucks," a word that links those two together could be "Frappuccino."

The goal is to say the same thing, but if you end up saying two different words, you've got to try again. The "Got It" name is pretty self-explanatory: When you think of a word, you exclaim, "Got it!" That way your friend knows you're ready to say your next word.
posted by Ian A.T. at 6:44 PM on May 13, 2023

Wow, I didn't know enlinko and Unrelated Words existed, and they are sooooooo satisfying. Just exactly the type of puzzle this word nerd likes to solve.
posted by skullhead at 6:26 AM on May 14, 2023