Word Hunt
A letter grid goes up — chat calls out every word they can spot
Category: Word · Players: free-for-all · Status: Beta
A word search the whole room plays at once. A letter grid fills the stage and chat calls out any word of four letters or more running in a straight line — across, down, diagonal, forwards or backwards. First to call a word locks it, their avatar pins to it on the board, and nobody else can score it.
There are no turns and no queue. Everyone is reading the same grid at the same time, so a big room finds words in bursts — which is the point. The board is generated so there is always far more to find than one session can exhaust.
Gameplay
A grid of letters appears with a timer. Nothing is hidden: every word chat can score is already on screen, waiting to be spotted.
Type the word — no command needed. It counts if it runs in a straight line in any of the eight directions and is at least four letters. A word already claimed by someone else is a miss, and misses cost nothing.
When the timer runs out the board flips to show everything chat missed, which is usually the best moment of the round. If the session has more boards configured, the next grid goes up.
Late joiners are welcome — a viewer’s first word joins them automatically, so anyone arriving mid-board can score immediately.
Themes
A themed board seeds the grid with words from one topic and pays a bonus for finding them, so the hunt has a shape without narrowing what counts.
Every other word on the grid still scores. A theme is a hint about where to look, not a filter — off-theme finds are worth their usual points, and the board’s checklist shows which themed words are still out there.
Leave the theme on Random for a plain board, where the theme bonus is ignored.
Configuration
| Option | Values | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Theme | 🎲 Random · 💼 Office · 🍕 Food · 🏀 Sports · 🐾 Animals · 🌲 Nature · 🎃 Halloween · 💻 Tech · 🎵 Music · ✈️ Travel · 📚 School · 👗 Fashion · 🚗 Transport | 🎲 Random |
| Theme bonus | 0–5 | 1 |
| Board size | Easy (12×12) · Medium (14×14) · Hard (16×16) | Medium |
| Boards per session | 1–5 | 1 |
| Seconds per board | 60–900 | 300 |
| Long-word bonus | 0–5 | 1 |
Bigger boards hide more words and take longer to sweep. Set Long-word bonus to 0 to score every find the same.
Layout
- Marquee — game title and how-to hint.
- Board — the letter grid, with coordinate labels down the edges so chat can point at what they’ve spotted.
- Claimed words — each find fills its cells and carries the avatar of whoever called it, in their own colour.
- Theme checklist — the themed words, ticked off as they’re found.
- Guess rail — words as they land, so the board reads as live even when nobody is scoring.
- Leaderboard — players ranked by points.
The game moves through Lobby → Board → Revealed → Finished, once per board.
Scoring
- Any valid find scores +1.
- A word of seven letters or more scores the long-word bonus on top, so by default a long word is worth double.
- An on-theme find scores the theme bonus on top. The two bonuses stack, so a long themed word is the best thing on the board.
- Most points across the session wins; ties are co-winners.