Estimator
Estimator Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Overview
Players: 3–8. Playing time: about 15 minutes. Age: 10+.
Each round, a question is read and you must estimate, using your own judgment, what the answer is. Write that answer on your whiteboard in secret, then reveal it. Be careful: the stingiest estimate and the most exaggerated estimate will be penalized with a poop token. Whoever ends the game with the fewest poop tokens is proclaimed ¡Superestimator! and wins the game.
Components
- 32 poop tokens
- 8 markers
- 8 whiteboards
- 110 question cards
- 1 rules sheet
Setup
Give each person a whiteboard and a marker. Shuffle the question deck and place it face down in the center of the table. Place the poop tokens beside it, leaving a space next to the deck for the cards already read.
How to Play
A game of Estimator is played over 10 rounds, each divided into these 3 phases:
1. Question
One person takes the top card of the deck, reads the question aloud and leaves it face up next to the deck so everyone can see it.
If anyone needs clarification, the person who read the question may clarify it as they see fit. It is not necessary to be too precise, since part of the fun is accepting different nuances.
In the next round, the question will be read by the person to the left of whoever read this round.
The reader symbol (a person icon on a gold coin) refers to the person who reads the question, and everyone must respond accordingly.
2. Answers
Each person thinks about their estimate, taking into account the unit of measurement of the question, which is shown in bold.
Then, each person writes their answer on their whiteboard, without anyone else seeing it. The answer must always be a number, and you may answer with decimal numbers, as long as they make sense.
Think about how the others will estimate and try to make your answer land in the middle. Don't be a know-it-all: a precise answer can make you lose.
3. Penalties
When everyone has written their estimate, they turn their whiteboards over to show them to the others. Then they locate the lowest answer and the highest answer.
Comment on the answers and, above all, gloat over the most outlandish estimates.
Whoever gave the stingiest estimate (the lowest) and the most exaggerated estimate (the highest), even if several people tie, takes 1 poop token as a penalty and leaves it on the table in front of them.
Example (from the sample on the rules sheet): the question is "Out of every 100 people, how many say «cocretas»?" Álex and Jesús answered 8, Nina answered 12, Vero answered 25 and Pablo answered 51. Pablo overshot with 51, so he receives a poop token. Álex and Jesús both answered 8, so both take a poop token. Nina and Vero landed between the extremes and avoid the penalty.
End of the Game
The game ends after 10 rounds, or when the poop tokens run out of the reserve. When this last case happens, the players who were penalized record the last poop token on their whiteboards; they do not get rid of it.
The person with the fewest poop tokens is proclaimed ¡Superestimator! and wins the game. In case of a tie, the victory is shared.