How to play Bods™

Bods is a party game for two or more players. A card shows a shape. You and at least one other person make that shape with your bodies. A camera catches the attempt and an AI judge scores it. It runs in a web browser — there is no app to download.

What you need

• Two people, minimum — four in two teams is the sweet spot. Bods does not work alone and never will. One person posing at a phone is not a game, it's a cry for help.
• A screen with a camera. Phone, laptop, iPad, or cast it to the telly so the rest of the room can watch.
• About two square metres of floor. Move the coffee table.
• Clothes you can bend in. Learn this one now rather than later.

The rules

1. Go to playbods.com

   In any browser, on anything. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for before you've tried it.

2. Prop the screen up

   Stand it somewhere the camera can see both of you — about two metres back, roughly waist height. If you're on a phone, turn it sideways. The game will tell you if it can't see your whole Bods.

3. Pick a pack

   Start with the free Classic Bods pack. It teaches you the game faster than this page does.

4. A shape card appears

   One shape, for the two of you to make together. Not one each. Together.

5. Decide who's what

   This is the game. Someone has to be the handle and someone has to be the spout, and you have about ten seconds to sort it out. Nobody has ever remembered a score. Everybody remembers the arguing.

6. Become the shape

   Get into it and hold still. The camera takes the picture. Whatever you were doing at that moment is now the permanent record.

7. Take your score

   Auntie Zeffie looks at what you've done and gives you a grade and a short remark. She is not kind. She is, annoyingly, usually fair.

8. Play out the round

   A round is eight shapes. Every pack holds sixteen, so you get a different eight next time — the pack you played on Christmas Day is a new game on Boxing Day. Bods edits and captions the good ones into a shareable video as you go. You only have to decide whether the world sees it.

Scoring

Five grades. Zeffie judges the shape you actually made against the shape on the card, and she judges it the same way for everyone — so if you're playing head to head, the result means something.

RUBBISH

Something went wrong very early and neither of you noticed.

FAIL

Recognisably an attempt. Not recognisably the shape.

PASS

Fine. Nobody will talk about it afterwards.

GOLD

You committed, and it worked.

GOLD WITH A CHERRY ON TOP

Rare. You'll know. So will everyone in the room.

Playing with more than two

Two is the minimum, but two versus two is where Bods is best — split into teams, take a card each in turn through the round, and total the grades: RUBBISH nil, FAIL one, PASS two, GOLD three, cherry five. Eight cards a round divides neatly between two teams, which was not an accident. And if you've got a really big gang, look out for the special Big Bods™ packs — those shapes need four or more players in them at once.

House rules people have invented

• Loser makes the tea. The most reliable one.
• Swap partners every five cards. You find out very quickly who can take direction.
• Silent round. No talking while you sort out who's what. Chaos.
• Nan's veto. One person in the room gets to reject a shape as beneath the family's dignity. They will use it wrongly.

Common mistakes

• Standing too close. If the camera can't see your feet, Zeffie assumes you don't have any.
• Explaining the shape out loud. She can't hear you. She can only see what you did.
• One person doing all of it. If your partner is standing there holding a mug, that's not a shape, that's a hostage situation.
• Playing on a phone flat on a table. You'll get a grade for the ceiling.

Ready

Classic Bods is free. After that, packs are £1.99, or six for the price of three in a collection.

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