Word Wheel: spin, pick letters and solve phrases

Before you spin: players, phrases and the price of a vowel

Word Wheel takes 2 to 10 players and one phone. On the opening screen, type in the names of everyone taking part (the app suggests recently used ones), then adjust three settings that make a real difference to the pace of the evening.

• Phrases to guess: 1, 3, 5, 7 or 10. With 3 phrases you play for a good quarter of an hour; with 10 the game becomes the main course of the evening.
• Cost of a vowel: €250, €500 or €750 (€500 by default). The pricier the vowel, the more it pays to go for consonants and the harder it is to buy your way to the answer.
• Your own phrases: if you like, you can play with phrases you have written yourselves, each with its own category.

The app remembers the group, the number of phrases and the vowel cost from your last game, so next time you only need to tap “Start game”. The playing order is drawn at random: nobody has to decide who goes first.

The complete rules, segment by segment

Every phrase belongs to a category shown above the board (Proverb, Idiom, Movies, Food, Travel and many more). The words appear as empty tiles: you can see straight away how long the words are and where the spaces fall, but never the letters.

What is on the wheel

The wheel has 12 segments: ten cash values (€100, €150, €200, €250, two of €300, €400, €500, €750 and €1,000), one LOSE A TURN segment and one BANKRUPT. LOSE A TURN passes play on with no other consequences. BANKRUPT, on the other hand, wipes out both your wallet for the current phrase and the bank you have built up in earlier phrases: it is the rule that makes Word Wheel more ruthless than the TV version.

The three moves on your turn

1. Spin the wheel. If it lands on a cash value, you must immediately call a consonant that has not been used yet. Every time it appears in the phrase it earns you that value: an N that appears three times on a €400 segment is worth €1,200. If the consonant is there, you keep playing; if it is not, the turn passes.
2. Buy a vowel. You can only do this before spinning, paying the chosen cost out of your wallet for the phrase (not out of the bank). You pay for the vowel even if it is not there: in that case, you lose your turn.
3. Solve. This too can only be done before spinning: after a spin you must first honour the value you landed on by calling a consonant. A board opens in which you type only the missing letters, which fill the empty tiles from left to right. A wrong solution passes the turn but does not cost you your money.

Once all the consonants have been called, the wheel locks: only vowels and solving are left.

Bank, end of the game and tie-break

Only the player who solves moves their wallet into the bank; everyone else’s wallet goes back to zero. The next phrase starts with the player sitting after the one who solved. When the phrases run out, the richest bank wins. If there is a tie, a tie-break phrase is played by the players level on money only: whoever solves it first wins.

One phrase from start to finish: “A FIELD TRIP TO THE MUSEUM”

Freya, Owen and Grace are playing with vowels at €500. Category: School. The board shows six words of 1, 5, 4, 2, 3 and 6 letters.

1. Freya spins and lands on €300. She calls T: there are three, +€900. She spins again, €400, and calls R: one, +€400. She has €1,300 in her wallet.
2. Before spinning, she buys E for €500: there are three. The board reads _ / _ _ E _ _ / T R _ _ / T _ / T _ E / _ _ _ E _ _. She has €800 left. She spins again: LOSE A TURN.
3. Owen spins €500 and calls N: there isn’t one, so the turn goes to Grace.
4. Grace spins €250 and calls M (two of them, +€500), then €1,000 and calls S (+€1,000). With €1,500 she buys U, which appears twice: now the board reads _ / _ _ E _ _ / T R _ _ / T _ / T _ E / M U S E U M.
5. Grace doesn’t risk another spin: she taps “Solve” and types A, F, I, L, D, I, P, O, H. Phrase solved: €1,000 goes into her bank, while Freya’s €800 goes back to zero. The next phrase is opened by Freya, who sits after Grace.

One phone passed around, or a room with a phone each

With a single phone, put it in the middle of the table or pass it to whoever’s turn it is: the board and the wheel are public, so there is nothing to hide. It is the quickest way to play, and it works offline too.

In an online room, one of you creates the room and the others join with the code or the QR code. The wheel, the board, the wallets and the banks are synchronised across every phone: whoever’s turn it is spins and picks letters on their own screen, and everyone else sees the wheel stop at the same moment. The phrases and the vowel cost are chosen in the lobby. If someone loses their connection, their turn is skipped and they get their place back when they return. It is also the right option for playing at a distance: you will find a few ideas in Playing together from a distance.

When to spin, when to buy, when to solve

• The consonants that pay best. In English the most frequent are T, N, S, R and H, followed by L, D and C: they are the safest calls in the early spins. Letters such as Z, Q, J or X are best kept for when the shape of the phrase suggests them.
• Count what you stand to lose. Every spin has a one-in-twelve chance of landing on BANKRUPT, and here bankruptcy takes your bank with it. Whoever is in the lead with a healthy bank should spin as little as possible and solve as soon as they can.
• A vowel is a move without the wheel. Buying an E or an A does not expose you to bankruptcy: if you have enough in your wallet, it is often better than another spin. E is the most common letter in English, so it is usually the first vowel worth buying.
• Solve even with an empty wallet. Closing a phrase with €0 looks pointless, but it wipes out your opponents’ wallets: if Owen has €2,000 riding on the phrase and you know the answer, solving takes it all away from him.
• Look at the short words. In English, one-letter words are almost always A or I, and three-letter words are often THE or AND: they are a cheap way to work out which vowel to buy.

The most common mistake is spinning again “to build up the pot” when the phrase is already obvious: a LOSE A TURN hands the solution to your neighbour, and a BANKRUPT resets your whole game. Another frequent mistake is buying vowels with a wallet that barely covers them and running out of money just as the phrase opens up.

The right sort of evening for Word Wheel

It works well from about the age of 9 or 10, when children read confidently and have some familiarity with proverbs and idioms; younger ones can team up with an adult under the same name. The ideal group is 3 to 6 people: with 10 players everyone waits longer for their turn, so it is worth choosing fewer phrases. It is perfect after dinner, when the group is in the mood to cheer and heckle every spin. If you are after a calmer, cooperative letter game, try Word in Bloom; for more ideas there is Games for a dinner party.