How to play One Line Each

One of you does not get the word

Everybody else does. That is the reverse of most games with a secret in them: the word is not a trap laid for the person who has not got it, it is the job they have been given, and the other five are entirely on their side.

The reader changes every round and everybody reads exactly once, so nobody has to volunteer and nobody gets to opt out. A match is one lap of the table.

One line each, at the same moment, and blind

You get a single continuous line. You can draw it again as many times as you like while the clock runs; only the last one goes on the sheet. Then the lap closes and every line lands at once.

Until it does you cannot see what anybody else is drawing, and they cannot see you. That is not a limitation of the screen — it is the whole game. Four people who could co-ordinate would divide the picture up sensibly and it would stop being funny; four people who cannot all draw the ears.

One guess, and the sooner the better

After each lap the reader says what they think it is, once. Read on the first lap and the table takes three points, on the second two, on the third one. Miss all three and the word goes up and the sheet moves on.

So the decision every drawer is making is arithmetic rather than taste: add the obvious line that gets it read now, or the one that will make sense only after somebody else has added theirs. Everybody is making it at the same time and nobody can talk about it first.

Questions people ask

Do I need to be able to draw?

Less than in any other drawing game, because you are not drawing the thing — you are drawing one line of it, and four other people are drawing the rest. A shaky line in the right place does more for a sheet than a good one in the wrong place, and nobody can tell whose is whose anyway.

Is it really co-operative?

Completely. There is one score, every seat at the table gets the same number for the same round, and a round nobody read pays nobody anything. Nothing in it can be won at somebody else's expense, which is the reason it works on a call with people you have to keep working with afterwards.

How long does it actually take?

One round per person, capped at six, and the table sets how long a lap runs — 20, 30 or 45 seconds. Five people at the middle setting is about twelve minutes. It is a promise the lobby prints before you start rather than a guess.

Why can I not see what everybody else is drawing?

Because a table that can see each other's hands divides the picture up, gets good at it in a fortnight, and never collides again — and the collision is the game. Everything anybody draws lands at the same instant, and the first thing you learn about your own line is whether three other people drew it too.

Can I play it on my own?

No, and it is the fourth game here with no machine to play against. A stand-in can neither draw a thing nor look at one and say what it is, and here it would be doing it on a sheet four other people are depending on.

Does anybody have to install anything to play One Line Each?

No. It runs in the browser everyone already has open. One person opens a room, reads out the six-character code or pastes the link into the channel, and everyone else is at the table in a couple of seconds.

Do we need accounts?

No. There is no sign-up, no password and no email address anywhere in the flow. You pick a name when you sit down, and that is the whole of it.

How many people can play One Line Each?

3 to 8 — best with five. A room seats up to 12.

How long does a game of One Line Each take?

About 12 minutes, which is the length of a coffee break rather than the length of a games night. Nobody is the host in the sense of holding the controls, so a round finishes whether or not everyone is still looking at it.

Does it work over a video call?

That is what it is for. The game is on the screen and the talking is on the call — nobody has to describe a board to anybody, and the parts that must stay private stay on the server rather than being read out.