How to play The Steal

Eighteen letters, and everybody at once

Eighteen letters come out and stay out — seven vowels, always, so a rack is never the kind of bad that makes everybody blame themselves. There is no grid and nothing to trace: type any letters on the table, in any order, four letters or more, and the word list has to have heard of it.

Nothing waits for anybody. Everybody is typing at the same time against one clock, and every word played is announced to the table the moment it lands.

The letters you use become yours — including theirs

When your word goes in, every letter it used becomes yours, and the table watches the colours move. A letter nobody has taken is free. A letter somebody else is holding costs you a word longer than the one they took it with, so a five takes a four and a six takes anything at all.

Your word always takes as much as it legally can, so a long word aimed at a crowded rack is a raid rather than a flourish. The screen shows you which letters it would take before you press the key, and tells you which one is stopping you when it cannot.

Whatever is yours at the buzzer

There is one scoring rule: a point a letter, counted at the buzzer. Holding the most is worth three more, and everybody tied for it takes them. So the number beside your name is not a record of what you did, it is a photograph of the table taken at the end.

Three races make a game, and after each one you find out what was in there that nobody saw. Playing on your own is a real game rather than a practice mode: one machine plays nothing but fours and fives and will out-work you, another barely touches a free letter and does best when you are doing well.

Questions people ask

Can somebody take letters back off me?

Yes, and that is the game. Any letter you hold can be taken by a word longer than the one you took it with, up to a ceiling of five — so a six can take anything on the board, whoever is holding it. It is the one game on this shelf where your score can fall while you are looking at it.

Do long words score more?

They take more letters at once, which is not the same thing. Past six letters a word is not better defended, only bigger — a nine takes nine tiles and holds them exactly as well as a six would. That cap is what keeps the whole table able to contest tiles rather than making it a private competition between the two widest vocabularies in the room.

Is there a turn order?

None. Everybody types at once for the whole race, and a word lands the moment it is submitted. Eight people can play without anybody waiting, which is why it works on a call.

Does anybody have to install anything to play The Steal?

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 The Steal?

1 to 8 — best with four. A room seats up to 12.

How long does a game of The Steal take?

About 10 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.