Ici Londres Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• The Game
  • Round Procedure
  • Guessing
  • Example
  • End of the Round

Components

• 4 rules cards
• 1 "Speaker" card
• 1 "Wehrmacht" card
• 6 "Résistant" (Resistance) cards
• 36 "Message" cards
• 9 "Synthèse" (Summary) cards

Setup

• The most talkative player starts. They take the "Speaker" card and place it in front of them.
• Their left-hand neighbour takes the "Wehrmacht" card and also places it in front of them. Turns are played clockwise.
• Place the 9 "Synthèse" cards in the centre of the table in a 3 by 3 square. These cards remind the players of all the possible messages contained in the game.
• Each player takes a "Résistant" card and places it in front of them, with the "0" side facing themselves: this is their starting score.
• Shuffle the "Message" cards and stack them face down on one side of the table.

The Game

The game is played in 12 rounds (10 rounds with 5 players).

Round Procedure

The Speaker draws 2 "Message" cards and looks at them secretly. They must say a message clear enough to let the other resistance members guess the icons shown on their cards, but convoluted enough that the player holding the "Wehrmacht" card does not intercept the message.

As soon as they are ready, they say: "Ici Londres, les Français parlent aux Français", then their coded sentence twice in a row, as on the BBC. The sentence is made up of a subject, a verb and an object (plus any necessary articles). The Speaker is free to invent whatever sentence they like, but tries to refer subtly to their icons.

2 examples:

• The 2 pieces of information to pass on are "heart" (cœur) and "book" (livre). The Speaker's message is: "Ici Londres, les Français parlent aux Français. Il adorait ses kilos, je répète, il adorait ses kilos." ("adorait" [loved] stands for "cœur" and "kilo" stands for "livre", which also means "pound".)
• The 2 pieces of information are "bell" (cloche) and "key" (clé). The Speaker's message is: "Ici Londres, les Français parlent aux Français. Pâques donnera la solution, je répète, Pâques donnera la solution." ("Pâques" [Easter] stands for "cloche" and "solution" stands for "clé".)

Guessing

Next, each receiving player designates the 2 icons (no more) of their choice by placing their fingers on the "Synthèse" cards.

There are 4 types of transmission. Decide which one you want to start with, then change once every player has been the Speaker. Note: we advise against starting with "Contre la montre" (Against the clock), which is the trickiest type of transmission.

The 4 types of transmission:

• Bribes de message (Message fragments): The receivers propose one icon at a time, in turn, following turn order.
• Réseaux concurrents (Competing networks): The receivers propose 2 icons, all playing at the same time. You cannot place your finger on an icon that is already occupied.
• Double 0: The receivers propose 2 icons at once, in turn, following turn order.
• Contre la montre (Against the clock): Like "Double 0", but the opponents count aloud backwards from 10 to 0, leaving one second between each number. If the player whose turn it is has not pointed at 2 icons before the end, too bad for them.

As soon as a receiving player designates an icon of the message, the Speaker reveals the corresponding "Message" card. Decoding the message stops when all receivers have pointed at 2 icons, or earlier if the 2 correct icons are found quickly.

Example

"Ici Londres, les Français parlent aux Français. Il adorait ses kilos, je répète, il adorait ses kilos." The players use the "Bribes de messages" transmission type. The player embodying the Wehrmacht plays first: they point at the "elephant" icon, thinking an elephant weighs a lot, but the Speaker reveals no card. The next player points at the "heart" icon and the Speaker reveals their "heart" card. Then the next player points at the "book" icon and the Speaker reveals their 2nd card. A very successful round for the Resistance!

End of the Round

2 points are awarded for each icon found.

• If the one who found the icon holds the "Wehrmacht" card, they take the 2 points.
• If another player finds it, that player and the Speaker take 1 point each.

Points are counted by rotating the players' "Résistant" cards (even for the player embodying the Wehrmacht): 1, 2, 3 points on the front, then 4, 5, 6 and 7 points on the back.

Then the "Speaker" and "Wehrmacht" cards are moved one player clockwise. The new Speaker shuffles the 2 "Message" cards used back into the draw pile, and a new round can begin.