Guess the Word
A hangman-style minigame — players tap letters to reveal a hidden word before their guesses run out.
Guess the Word is one of the five minigame challenge types. It plays like hangman: the word is masked with blanks, and players tap letters on an on-screen keyboard. Correct letters reveal in the word; wrong letters consume a life. Revealing the whole word completes the challenge automatically.
What players experience
The challenge screen shows the clue as usual, then a "Guess the word" panel:
- A row of hearts shows remaining lives — one heart per allowed wrong guess, filled while still available.
- If a category is configured, a
Category: …line appears above the word (e.g. "Category: Beverage") as a built-in nudge. - The word is displayed as underlined blanks. Non-letter characters (spaces, hyphens) are shown as-is, so multi-word answers keep their shape.
- Below is a tappable A–Z keyboard. Correct picks turn green and reveal every occurrence of that letter; wrong picks turn red and empty a heart.
The player taps letters until either every letter is revealed or the hearts run out. The word is matched case-insensitively — it is shown and compared in uppercase.
On a win the panel shows Got it! The word was {WORD}. and the app
submits the completion automatically — no typing, no submit button.
On a loss the panel shows Out of guesses. The word was {WORD}. with a
Try again button that resets the board. Retries are free and
unlimited.
If the challenge is opened before a word is configured, players see "This word challenge isn't fully configured yet — the answer word is missing." instead of the game.
Scoring & answers
Guess the Word is answerless — the word lives in the minigame config, not
in the challenge's answer field, and there is no Answer Type field in the
editor. The mobile app runs the game locally and, on a win, submits the
sentinel answer minigame_completed; the server marks the submission correct
if and only if it receives that sentinel.
Points awarded on completion follow the standard challenge formula:
- Base points = the challenge's Points value (default 100), minus the hint deduction if the team used the hint, floored at 0.
- Speed bonuses apply for the first teams to finish, when configured.
- An active Double Down artifact effect doubles the whole award.
The outcome is client-trusted
The server cannot see which letters were tapped, so it trusts the win signal from the app — the same pattern as every minigame.
Configuring in the admin
In the challenge editor, set Type to Guess the Word. A Minigame Setup section appears with the config panel on the left and a Live preview on the right, so you can play the puzzle yourself before saving.
| Field | Constraints | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Word | 2–50 characters, required | — | The hidden word (e.g. "ESPRESSO"). Displayed and matched in uppercase; spaces and hyphens are shown unmasked. |
| Category | 1–100 characters, required | — | Shown to players above the word as a hint (e.g. "Beverage"). |
| Max guesses | Whole number, 1–20 | 6 | Wrong guesses allowed before the round is lost — the number of hearts. |
Invalid config blocks publishing
You can save a Guess the Word challenge without a config and fill it in
later, but the event cannot be published or started while any minigame
challenge has a missing or invalid configuration — the readiness check
invalid-minigame-config fails with "N minigame challenges have a missing
or invalid minigame configuration." See
Creating & Configuring Events.
Tips
- A loss reveals the word. The out-of-guesses message shows the full answer, and retries are free — so a team that loses once wins the retry trivially. Treat max guesses as pacing, not a hard gate, and use speed bonuses if you want failure to cost something.
- Pick words with uncommon letters for difficulty. With 6 lives, common vowel-heavy words fall quickly; words with J, Q, X, or Z punish brute-forcing the alphabet.
- The Category field is a visible hint — write it accordingly. It shows before any letter is guessed. Keep it broad ("Beverage") rather than narrow ("Italian coffee drink") unless you want an easy round.
- Multi-word answers work. Spaces render unmasked, so "TEA PARTY" shows as two blank groups — players learn the word count for free. Use a single word when you don't want to give that away.