A few issues back I reviewed Bialogue, a game which tossed an entertaining party game concept together with a strategic board game, producing a muddied whole less than the sum of its parts. England's Inspeaquence distills the party mechanic to its essence for a far more successful result.
To refresh your memory, the mechanic in question was used to good effect in the bonus round of the game show Chain Reaction. Players split into two teams. Only one team plays at a time, with one player from the team as a guesser and the others as the speakers. The speakers try to get their guesser to say all five words from a card in sixty seconds or less. They do so by providing clues, in complete sentences, which describe one of the words. The gimmick is that without conferring amongst each other, the speakers must give the clues one word at a time. Which is to say, the first speaker says a word, then the next speaker says a word, and so on down the line wrapping back around to the first speaker. If the team gets flustered, they may start a new sentence at any time.
By keeping this mechanic simple, Inspeaquence keeps the fun moving at a brisk and entertaining pace. Teams are obligated to give clues in sentences, rather than fragments or lists of related items. Nevertheless, after playing for a while players may pick up on some shortcuts which help the guesser nail the right answer faster. An important tip is to get the most evocative and helpful words into your clue early. Each word takes time, since your teammates have to catch on to your train of thought. The fewer words it takes to get the point across, the better. For VIOLIN, you might begin the clue with "Stradivarius," intending a sentence like "Stradivarius made this stringed instrument." The first word should be enough to get the right answer and save much time, better than "This stringed instrument is played with a bow."
Inspeaquence works best with large teams, preferably of at least four players each. Five or six is even better. The more speakers you have, the more chance for confusion and the resulting hilarity.
If you can't get a copy of the game sent over from Britain, you have a couple of other options. The cards from Bialogue (Resimont, 1-800-787-9180) would work quite well using Inspeaquence rules— just give a point for every word guessed and play to 30 points. Or you could try playing with the cards from a game like Pictionary, which you probably already own. Either way, I'm glad to see the system used in a game which does it justice.