by W. Eric Martin

When driving around town, I listen to a lot of WKNC, the radio station run by students at North Carolina State University. As with pretty much all college radio stations I've encountered, the DJ for each hour has free rein to play what they wish, and I love turning in because I never know what to expect. (Yes, the hosts have regular days and times, but I don't know their schedules because I work at home and am not in the car at the same times each day.)

I keep the Shazam app handy so that I can identify a track — whether to download it myself or to share it with my wife, whose tastes I can usually guess spot on — because I know if that song ends, I'm unlikely to ever hear it again. (Yes, I know that a recent playlist is available online, but I have a poor track record of remembering to look up something later. It's now or never! Tomorrow will be too late.)

What's remarkable is that the tracks I Shazam frequently have fewer than one hundred other look-ups. These students are playing new songs by artists I don't know (and that few others know apparently), so I'm "discovering" tons of tracks I'd never hear otherwise. (I was only the second(!) person to Shazam Takeshi Nakatsuka's CRYPTOMERIA, which I recommend checking out if only for the novelty.)

In short, I appreciate college radio stations because they introduce me to music I never would have know about otherwise — and this isn't about liking everything that's new, but experiencing it and discovering that the borders of "music" extend far beyond my everyday playlist. I try to follow the same approach on BGG News, although admittedly I write far more often about well-known games than obscure releases.

Sometimes, though, I get to cover a game largely unknown to all, as was the case in early 2023 when I reviewed Yusuke Sato's Nigoichi, which Japanese publisher JELLY JELLY GAMES had released in October 2022.

Each round in Nigoichi, you're secretly given two numbers — each of which has been assigned a random word — and you need to create a single-word clue that will help others identify those two numbers, with the overall goal of identifying the single number that hasn't been paired up. (Think Codenames or So Clover!) If you guess that single number correctly, you score.

Of course, if an opponent guesses that number, they also score, which is bad since you want to have the most points at game's end, so you might think about giving a bad clue in order to throw them off track and be less likely to land on the correct answer — but if they give one of your numbers as the final answer, then you lose points. If enough people guess one of your words, you might end up with a negative score for the round.

In short, Nigoichi is a competitive game that feels like a co-operative game when playing. Everyone gets to be the Codenames cluegiver at the same time, and everyone wants to give good clues to avoid having their numbers chosen, but you hope others botch their guess for the lone number...while guessing anyone else's numbers but yours.

An example of gameplay in Nigoichi
As it turns out, Joe Wiggins from Allplay saw my write-up, liked the sound of the game, and ended up licensing it for release in English under the name Alibis, with the game now being fully co-operative.

In my announcement of the game, Wiggins commented that "...in playtesting and development we found that [in] EVERY game...players felt there was a desire to give bad clues to hinder their opponents even if it worked out worse for their scoring. From a culture stand point this isn't something that ever comes up with Japanese players." Interesting comment on the nature of U.S. players: We will tank our own position to ensure that others won't benefit. Hmm.


Anyway, the gameplay in Alibis is identical to that in Nigoichi: Each player receives two numbers, each with a random word assigned to them, and you create a single-word clue to (ideally) get others to identify your numbers and stay away from them when deciding which number stands alone. You write your deductions on a board, using symbols to identify each player's numbers/words.

At the end of each round, each player reveals their two numbers, and if at least one person guessed them correctly, you remove 1 "heat" token from play. For each person who identifies the lone number correctly, you remove 3 heat tokens. After three rounds, you count how many heat tokens remain, then consult a chart to determine your ranking.

I've played Alibis twice on a review copy, both times with five players, and we didn't come close to a good "heat" ranking, so we just kept playing — which slots Alibis in the category of "co-operative games in which you can theoretically keep score, but in which you probably won't". The clue-giving and -guessing is the interesting part of the design, and scoring is peripheral, which makes the competitive vs. co-operative choice a non-issue for me.

That said, I can understand why Allplay made this change. Aside from spiteful Americans making bad choices, you also have the issue of someone being punished due to another player's inability to interpret a clue. If player A identifies one of player B's numbers as the target, player A doesn't score — which is more of a neutral effect than a negative one — but player B loses points, which def. feels negative. In Alibis, if player A guesses one of player B's numbers, you don't remove heat, which is a neutral effect, with the blame (sort of) shared evenly between those two players.


I'm not convinced this scoring approach is ideal, but as I've already said, scoring is secondary to playing — and the challenge of playing remains the same in both designs, so I'm glad Allplay is making this Yusuke Sato design available to a wider audience...even if the thematic wrapping of players trying to identify a supervillain makes no sense. Why are being secretive with our information? Why wouldn't we share information openly if we're all trying to catch the same person?!

I favor Nigoichi's "gameplay first" approach of having numbers paired with words, but that's my choice in most game designs: Ensure that the setting of the game doesn't interfere with the clear transmission of information — and I recognize that "clear transmission of information" is not the most inviting phrase if you're trying to get someone to the game table, but I'm thinking about my interaction with players, not the world of the game, so I prefer as small a barrier as possible.

For more thoughts on how Nigoichi compares to Alibis, along with a complete round of gameplay that you can try to solve on your own, watch this video. Oh, and if you ever get the chance to play a game that almost no one else has, please write about it and share details with others. You never know what might happen as a result!

Youtube Video