Questionary
The Game of Smart Questions

How many participants are needed to play the game?

You need a minimum of 2. With 6 or more people fun starts multiplying.  The more the better!

 How many teams should be formed?

You mostly form two teams.  But for a larger group you may form several teams.

 Is one person designated as Responder for the Team for the whole game?

No.  Each player in the team takes turn to be the next Responder.

 What if I am not sure if answer to a question is Yes or No?

There are other valid answers like: I don’t know, Not sure, May be, or kind of.  See the instruction sheet that comes with the game.

 How to ask Smart Questions?

In short, smart questions will try to eliminate a range of words and lead to the right word in quick steps. The key objective of your team should be to first find the basic characteristics of the word. For example, an object will have a common size and will be made of some material.  So, if you are guessing an object try first to find what is it made of - metal, wood, plastic, rubber, glass, clay, leather, fabric, etc? Then try to find out where is it normally found, inside or outside the house. Find out the approximate size, weight, cost and what is it commonly used for.  Once you have narrowed down to a small set of objects, start naming all probable objects of that kind.  Following will be typical examples of questions for guessing an object:  Is it metallic? Is it made of wood? Is it normally found inside our houses? Is it in this house, or our house? Is it larger than 2 feet? Is it a furniture item? Is it a kitchen item? Is it an electronic item? Do we see it in parks, offices, on water? And so on..  Similarly for animals, typical questions would be: Is it a mammal, fish, bird, reptile, insect, water creature? Is it a plant eater/meat eater? Find out the color, size and where found commonly. For food category, try to narrow down the probable foods by finding out if it is a prepared dish, vegetable, fruit, condiment and so on.

You get the idea now. Extend the same strategy to other categories like people, place and plants. Ask questions such as: Is this place a country?  If it is a country, which continent it belongs to? And so on. The main idea is to first find the defining characteristics of the word (Object, Animal, Person.) rather than randomly trying to guess the word.