The game is played in a group of 4-8 people, on a timespan of around a week where you'll be talking to each other frequently. In my dream I played it with my friends over the course of a con.
Each player has a number to keep track of, it starts at zero. Your goal is to get it as high as possible by the end of the game. It's on you to track your own number, be honest.
When in conversation with someone else playing the game, you can try to slip in the integer after your current number. If they don't catch you, increase your number by one.
Homophones count. Mumbling or whispering inaudibly doesn't count. They have to hear you, just not notice that you're increasing your score.
In my dream the way they signalled they caught you was by exclaiming: "Fuck!"
To catch someone, "Fuck!" has to be the first thing you say in reply. So, for example:
Case 1:
Person A (3): Hey, let's get something four lunch.
Person B: Fuck! Sounds good.
Person A (3): Damn.
Case 2:
Person A (3): Hey, let's get something four lunch.
Person B: Sure, sounds good. Wait. Fuck!
Person A (4): Too late!
You do not have to reveal when you've slipped something by unnoticed, and you do not have to disclose your current score, except at the very end of the game period to find out who has won.
You can get creative with names of numbers, homophones, and sub-parts of words. For example, the phrase "twenty to twenty-three" contains 2, 3, 20, 22, 23, 223, 2220, and 2223. (The word "to" here counts as a homophone for "two" even when in this particular stress pattern it doesn't sound the same. I don't like it, but that's how it worked. In my dream this particular phrase was used near the end of the game period to jump from 21 to 23 points, narrowly winning the game.)
I haven't playtested this game in real life, only in my dream. So if it isn't fun blame my unconscious self, not me. Notably missing from my dream was what happens if you say "Fuck!" and get it wrong. So you could just spend the entire week saying "Fuck!" before every reply to a friend if you want, I guess. Also, the moment collusion happens, the integrity of the game evaporates. Everyone must be trying to maximize their own scores while minimizing everyone else's, or two people can just count up forever together as long as they want.
