A round
What you are dealt
Everyone at the table is given the same location and a role in it — the one who keeps the log, the one who is late, the one nobody asked for. Everyone except one person, who is given neither and is told only that they are the one who was not.
The location never reaches the odd one's browser. That is a property of the server rather than a promise about the interface: two deals that differ only in somebody else's card are byte-identical from your seat, and a test in the suite fails if that stops being true.
The questions
One player asks another a question about where they are. That player answers, and then asks somebody else — so the turn moves with the question and cannot settle on one person. Eight minutes on the clock in the rail, and any time a majority says so the questions stop early.
The bind is the whole game. A question specific enough to catch the odd one out is a question specific enough to tell them where they are, and an answer vague enough to be safe is an answer that makes you look like the one who does not know.
The vote
Everyone votes at once and nobody sees a single ballot until they are all in, so nobody is voting with the table. If the odd one is named, they get one last chance to say where everybody else was.
Three rounds, and the odd one moves.
On the sheet
Questions people ask
Is Out of Place any good with people who have never played anything like it?
It is the one we would start a new team on. There is nothing to learn beyond asking a question and answering one, the rules fit in a sentence said out loud, and a first round teaches the game better than any explanation of it.
Does anybody get knocked out and have to watch?
No. Everyone plays every round from the first minute to the last, including the person who is caught. That is deliberate: a game that sits somebody out for eight minutes is a game that has ended for them.
Does anybody have to install anything to play Out of Place?
No. It runs in the browser everyone already has open. One person opens a room, reads out the six-character code or pastes the link into the channel, and everyone else is at the table in a couple of seconds.
Do we need accounts?
No. There is no sign-up, no password and no email address anywhere in the flow. You pick a name when you sit down, and that is the whole of it.
How many people can play Out of Place?
3 to 8 — best with five or six. A room seats up to 12.
How long does a game of Out of Place take?
About 20 minutes, which is the length of a coffee break rather than the length of a games night. Nobody is the host in the sense of holding the controls, so a round finishes whether or not everyone is still looking at it.
Does it work over a video call?
That is what it is for. The game is on the screen and the talking is on the call — nobody has to describe a board to anybody, and the parts that must stay private stay on the server rather than being read out.