How to play Name Place Animal

Name Place Animal is the pen-and-paper classic: a letter is drawn, and everyone writes a word that starts with it for each category, a name, a place, an animal and more. Here it's played in the browser over a link: the game draws the letters, keeps the time and adds up the points.

How a round goes

  1. A letter is drawn, never the same one twice in a game. Every answer box already starts with it, so you type only the rest.
  2. Write one word for each category before the time runs out: one to three minutes, as chosen when the game was opened. An answer that doesn't start with the letter isn't taken.
  3. In the peaceful mode, the round ends once everyone has pressed Done, or when the time is up. In the competitive mode, the first player to fill every box can press STOP, and everyone else has a few seconds left to finish: three to thirty, as chosen when the game was opened.
  4. Then the answers are read together, a card for each category. Answers that two players share are marked as the same.
  5. Press Ready once you've read them. The next round opens when everyone is ready, or when the time runs out.

Who decides whether an answer counts?

The game checks one thing only: that an answer starts with the round's letter. Whether a word really is an animal, or a town really exists, is for the table to decide, as it is around a kitchen table. In the competitive mode you can reject someone else's answer: one rejection is enough in a game of two, it takes two in a game of three or more, and a rejected answer scores nothing.

Peaceful or competitive

The peaceful mode keeps no score. Give a heart to the answers you like, and a reaction if you wish (😂 made me laugh, 💡 clever, 🤯 never thought of that). At the end everyone gets at least one badge, and the answer with the most hearts becomes the Answer of the Night.

The competitive mode keeps a score: the STOP, the rejections, the standings after every round and a podium at the end, with the badges beside the points.

Points in the competitive mode

  • 20 points for the only answer in its category that round.
  • 10 points for an answer nobody else gave.
  • 5 points for an answer another player gave too.
  • No points for an empty box, an answer off the letter or a rejected one.

Players with equal points share a place.

Badges

At the end, badges go to the table's habits: One of a Kind for the most answers nobody else gave, Walking Encyclopaedia for the most answers given, Quick Pen for the first to say Done in the most rounds, The Stopper for the most STOPs. In the peaceful mode, the hearts and the reactions bring their own, and a player still without one gets the Good Sport.

How it differs from pen and paper

On paper, someone calls the letter, someone watches the clock, and the answers are read out and scored by hand. Here the game draws the letter, keeps the time, marks the answers two players share and adds up the points. The reading, the laughing and the arguing are still the table's.