Just One is a cooperative party game to discover as many mystery words as possible. Each turn, the active player must guess a mystery word based on one-word clues from the other players. Identical clues cancel each other, so there is a tension between choosing obvious clues that are likely to match others' clues (and be eliminated), and choosing more obscure clues that may not help the active player guess correctly.
A complete game is played over 13 cards, which list the mystery words and also act as a scoring mechanism. If the active player guesses correctly, then the players score 1 point (the current card). If the active player passes, then they lose 1 point (the current card). If the active player guesses incorrectly, then the players lose 2 points (the current card and the next card). The goal is to get a score as close to 13 as possible.
This show provides examples of:
- Co-Op Multiplayer: Players work together to discover as many mystery words as possible.
- Double Meaning: When the mystery word has multiple meanings, this can be exploited by the clue givers. For example, when the mystery word is "Ball", some clues might refer to sporting equipment, others might refer to a formal dance party, and so on.
- Gameplay Grading: At the end of the game, the number of successful cards determines your "score", which is text describing your performance:
- 13 cards: Perfect score! Can you do it again?
- 12 cards: Incredible! Your friends must be impressed!
- 11 cards: Awesome! That's a score worth celebrating!
- 9-10 cards: Wow, not bad at all!
- 7-8 cards: You're in the average. Can you do better?
- 4-6 cards: That's a good start. Try again!
- 0-3 cards: Try again, and again, and again.
- Uniqueness Rule: For each word, a specific clue may only be given once. If it appears more than once when the clues are compared, those clues gets erased and aren't shown to the guesser.
