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Category: Word · Players: free-for-all (no elimination) · Status: Stable
The host picks a secret word. Chat guesses words, and each guess is scored by how semantically close it is to the secret — rank 1 is the word itself, higher ranks are further away. The first person to land rank 1 wins.

How to play

1

Guess words

Type a single word (letters only, at least two characters). Each new word is placed on a closeness ladder by its rank; the closer it is, the hotter it glows.
2

Read the heat

A low rank (e.g. #3) means you’re very close; a high rank (e.g. #1340) is cold. Use everyone’s guesses to triangulate toward the secret.
3

Solve it

The first person to type the exact secret word (rank 1) wins and ends the round. The host can also reveal early to settle on points.
Each unique word is scored once — the first person to play it claims it, and inflections (plurals, tenses) resolve to their base word. Late joiners are welcome any time; their first guess opts them in.

Host setup

OptionValuesDefault
Secret wordany in-vocabulary English word— (required)
Winner modefinal_guess, most_pointsmost_points
Reveal giftone gift that unlocks letters (optional)off
  • final_guess — the first person to reach rank 1 wins; others rank by their best (lowest) rank.
  • most_points — every accepted guess scores by rank tier (below), and the highest total wins. A rank-1 hit still ends the round.

On screen

Labeled layout of the Chatexto play surface
  1. Marquee — game title and how-to hint.
  2. Heat tiles — counts of close / mid / far guesses so far.
  3. Gift strip — which gift reveals letters and by how much (when configured).
  4. Revealed letters — letters unlocked by gifts, listed without positions.
  5. Closest-guess hero — the current best guess, with its rank and heat bar.
  6. Closest-guess ladder — recent guesses sorted by rank, colored by heat.
  7. Recent attempts — every guess in arrival order, including duplicates and non-words.
  8. Leaderboard — top players by points (or best rank in final-guess mode).
The game moves through Lobby → Loading → Playing → Finished.

Gifts

Chatexto’s gift is cooperative — it helps the whole room, and it can never solve the word outright. It’s off unless the host picks a reveal gift.
  • Each send of the reveal gift uncovers about 10% of the word’s letters (at least one), at random positions.
  • Reveals are capped at 70% of the word — the remaining letters must always be guessed. Once the cap is hit, further gifts do nothing (“hints exhausted”).
  • Spaces, hyphens, and punctuation are shown from the start and don’t count against the cap.

Scoring & winning

In most_points mode, each accepted guess scores by rank:
RankPoints
1100
2–1030
11–5015
51–2008
201–10003
1001–50001
5000+0
  • A rank-1 guess ends the round in either mode. In most_points, the solver banks 100 first, then the highest total is crowned — usually the solver, but a prolific guesser can edge ahead.
  • Tiebreaks: points, then best rank, then join order.
  • Wins are tracked per streamer.