Botticelli (game)

Botticelli is a guessing game which requires the players to have a good knowledge of biographical details of famous people. The game has several variants, but the common theme is that one person or team thinks of a famous person, reveals their initial letter, and then answers yes/no questions to allow other players to guess the identity.

The game takes its name from the famous person having to be at least as famous as Sandro Botticelli, who is also the answer to the archetypal question, "Did you paint a picture of Venus rising?", referring to his painting The Birth of Venus.

One player (the chooser) is selected to think of a famous person (the identity). This person should be someone the chooser is comfortable answering biographical questions about, and someone the chooser is very confident that the other players will all have heard of; obscure identities make for frustrating game play, especially with young players. The rule of thumb is that the person should be at least as famous or well known as Sandro Botticelli, hence the name of the game. Fictional characters are acceptable, but can present certain difficulties. In some contexts, a non-famous person with whom all the players are familiar may be acceptable.

The chooser then announces the initial letter of the name by which the person is usually known; for non-fictional characters, this is usually the last name. For example, if the chooser chose Sandro Botticelli, then the initial letter would be B. Names such as Michael Douglas might generate argument, as only the two names together identify the person. A first name such as Elvis (who might be Presley or Costello) can be chosen, where it is a well known identifier. For the purposes of phrasing questions and answers, the chooser adopts the chosen identity.

The game has two modes — direct mode and indirect mode — and starts in indirect mode.

In indirect mode, the guessers take turns (either in sequence or informally) to think of someone with the designated initial letter. These guesser choices do not have to conform to any other information so far acquired about the chooser's identity (e.g. male, non-fiction, still alive).

Each guesser asks the chooser a yes/no question using some detail of the guesser's choice. For example, if the letter is B then the guesser might choose Yul Brynner and ask, "Are you bald?" At this point, the chooser has three possible responses:

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