How to play Two Lines

You get two prompts, and nobody else has seen either of them

At the start of a round every person is handed two prompts and one text box for each. They are yours until the moment they reach the table: nobody is shown anybody else's, nobody is told who they are up against, and nothing anybody types travels anywhere until its turn comes round. Everybody writes at once, so there is no order and no waiting.

A prompt asks for a thing that does not exist — a name for something, the worst possible version of something, an object that should not be allowed to do what it does. They are written so that the answer can be invented from an empty head: there is nothing to know and no anecdote to be short of, which is what stops the game rewarding whoever happens to have a story.

Two answers to one prompt, with nothing to say whose is whose

Each prompt was given to exactly two people, and when it reaches the table their two answers go up side by side with no names on them. Which one is on the left is decided by a coin the software tosses, so even the position tells you nothing. Everybody except the two authors picks the one they prefer, or neither.

The two people in the duel do not vote in it, and the software will not let them — you know which one is yours, so a vote from you is a vote for yourself or against yourself, and neither is a judgement about the writing.

Then both names go on, and that is the whole arrangement

The moment the last vote lands, both lines are signed. Not later, not on request, and not only the winner: the losing line gets its author's name in the same instant and the same size. There is no state of this game in which something has been voted on and nobody has to own it.

It is the price of putting a text box in front of colleagues and it is not negotiable here. It is also what the scoring makes unavoidable — a point for every person who preferred your line cannot be paid without the room being told the line was yours. The window in which anything is anonymous is one phase long and has a clock on it.

A point a vote, and two more for taking the room

Every person who prefers your line is worth a point, and a line that takes every vote cast is worth two more on top. Nobody is eliminated, nobody sits a round out, and everybody writes to the same number of prompts, so a bad round costs you points and never a turn.

If only one of you wrote anything, the line that exists goes up on its own with a name on it and scores nothing — the points here are people preferring your line, and nobody preferred anything. If a round is abandoned before it finishes it pays nobody at all, which counts against the round rather than against the players.

Questions people ask

Do I have to be funny?

It helps and it is not the job. The room is picking between two answers to the same prompt, so what wins is usually the one that is more specific rather than the one that is cleverer — and half the laughs at any table come from two people having independently written almost the same thing. Everybody writes the same number of lines, so a flat one costs a point and never a turn.

Is what I write anonymous?

For one phase, and then never again. Both lines go up with no names on them while the room votes, because a signed pair is not a vote about the writing — you would back the colleague you like. The second the vote closes both authors are named, the one who lost as well as the one who won. That is the arrangement the whole game runs on and the screen says so before the box takes a keystroke.

Can a prompt end up being about somebody in the room?

No, and that is a property of the deck rather than a hope about the players. Every prompt is about a thing — an object, a place, a machine — and none of them names a person or a kind of person or is shaped so that the obvious answer is somebody's name. There is no word filter and there will not be one: a filter is a promise software cannot keep, and a name under everything is the thing that actually works.

What happens if I do not write anything?

Nothing is invented on your behalf. Whoever you were up against has their line put up on its own with their name on it, and it scores nothing, because the points come from people preferring your line and there was nothing to prefer. You can still vote in everybody else's, and you are dealt in again the moment the next round starts.

Does a big table make it drag?

A round is one duel per person and everybody reads every one, so eight people play for about twice as long as four. Each duel is a short vote and a short reveal rather than a discussion, which is what keeps the difference bearable. Six is the size where the room is big enough to be a room and small enough that you are never far from your own line coming up.

Does anybody have to install anything to play Two Lines?

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 Two Lines?

4 to 8 — best with six. A room seats up to 12.

How long does a game of Two Lines take?

About 15 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.