We Were Here Communication Tips: The Walkie-Talkie Vocabulary for Two-Player Puzzles

Every We Were Here game — from the free 2017 original through the brand-new We Were Here Tomorrow — is solved in the same place: the space between two voices. The puzzles are communication puzzles, and the players who finish them comfortably are not the smartest pairs; they are the pairs who describe things precisely. This page is the standard vocabulary for that precision: the words and conventions that turn "the thing next to the other thing" into information your partner can act on. Learn it once and it serves you across the entire series, whatever the room looks like.

Rule Zero: Establish a Reference Frame

The single most common communication failure in the series is left and right. Your left is your partner's left only if you happen to be facing the same way — and in a series that deliberately separates two players into different spaces, you usually are not.

Fix it with one of two conventions, agreed at the start of every session:

• Screen-relative directions. "Left" always means the left side of your own view of the screen. It is simple, it always works, and it is the default most pairs settle into.
• Object-relative directions. For anything with an obvious orientation — a statue, a machine, a drawing — describe from the object's perspective ("on the door's left," "at the clock's top") and say which frame you are using when you do.

The discipline that matters is not which frame you choose; it is announcing it. Half of all "we're describing different things" deadlocks in this series are two players using different frames for the same sentence.

Positions: The Clock

For anything arranged in a circle or roughly circular — dials, rings, pedestal layouts, rotatable markers — use clock positions:

• "The marker is at 2 o'clock." "The gap is between 10 and 11."
• Twelve o'clock is always the top of the dial as you face it. If the object can be rotated or viewed from another side, say so explicitly: "rotated so 6 is now at the top."
• Clock positions beat "upper left-ish" because they carry twelve distinct values instead of four fuzzy ones, and because they survive being repeated back without corruption.

For concentric arrangements — rings around a shared center, layers of a mechanism — always pair the clock with inner / middle / outer: "the outer ring has eight symbols; the pointer on the middle ring sits at 4 o'clock." Inner and outer are unambiguous in a way that "the big circle" and "the small circle" are not when two similar objects exist.

Colors, Shapes, and Symbols

The series has always leaned on symbols, and describing them has standard practice:

• Colors: use the basic eight, plus modifiers. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, white — and when precision matters, qualify: "dark blue, almost navy," "a warm red, brick-colored." If two colors are close, do not name them separately; say "these two are nearly the same red" and let that fact carry the meaning.
• Shapes before interpretations. Say what the symbol is before saying what it means. "A crescent with the opening facing left" is a description your partner can match against their own room; "the moon one" is a guess wearing a description's clothes. Interpretations can wait until both half-pictures are on the table.
• Orientation is part of the shape. A triangle pointing up and a triangle pointing down are different symbols. Arrows, crescents, and T-shapes all get a direction attached, using your agreed reference frame.
• Composite symbols: read them like addresses. "Top half is a star, bottom half is three horizontal lines" — divide the symbol into regions and report each region.

Counting and Sequence

Numbers corrupt easily over voice, so give them structure:

• Count out loud, and count twice when the quantity matters. "One, two, three — three levers" beats "a few levers."
• Never say numbers without a unit or referent. "Four" means nothing; "four pillars" means everything.
• For sequences, number the steps as you propose them — "Option one: we try blue first. Option two: red" — so your partner can say "option two" instead of re-describing it.
• Agree that repeating numbers back is normal, not annoying. Confirmed numbers are the only numbers.

The Confirmation Loop

The habit that separates good pairs from frustrated ones. Every important statement gets a lightweight echo:

1. Sender: "The outer ring has a blue symbol at 9 o'clock."
2. Receiver: "Blue, outer ring, 9 o'clock — got it."
3. Only then does either player act on the information.

The echo catches nearly every transmission error at the moment it happens — a "3 o'clock" misheard as "1 o'clock," a green that was really teal — instead of thirty minutes later when the puzzle refuses to close. Pair it with the read-report-relate loop from the no-spoiler walkthrough method and most rooms stop feeling hard and start feeling like a conversation. For what kinds of rooms to expect across the series, see the puzzle types overview.

If the Pair Is Struggling Anyway

When descriptions keep missing, slow down rather than speed up. Re-inventory both spaces using the full vocabulary above, and remember the rule that saves every struggling pair eventually: say what it is, not what it means. New pairs will find more first-session structure in the beginner's guide, and the vocabulary here applies to every branch of the franchise — mainline, the board-game-styled Expeditions spin-off, and Tomorrow's new retro-futuristic rooms alike.

FAQ

Why do left and right cause so many problems in We Were Here?

Because the two players are deliberately placed in different spaces, usually facing different directions, so "left" is a different direction for each of you. Agree on screen-relative or object-relative frames at session start — see Rule Zero above.

What are clock positions and why use them?

Describing circular layouts as clock hours — "the marker is at 2 o'clock" — with 12 at the top. They carry twelve precise values, survive repetition, and pair naturally with inner/middle/outer for concentric rings.

Do these tips apply to We Were Here Tomorrow?

Yes. Tomorrow keeps the series' two-player divided-information core, so the communication vocabulary is the same skill set — launch facts are on the Tomorrow guide.

Is a shared vocabulary really necessary, or will we just naturally understand each other?

Pairs naturally develop shorthand — usually mid-way through being stuck. Learning the standard words up front just means your pair skips the stuck part. The full method is in the walkthrough approach.