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Emoji Rush

A string of emoji hides a movie, a song or a place. Type the answer before everyone else: the more hints that appear, the less it's worth, and an AI on the host's device accepts typos and close answers.

1-8 players~10 min

Rules

The idea

Emoji say more than words. The big screen shows a rebus: a short string of emoji that spells out a movie, song, book, cartoon, brand or famous phrase. You crack it on your phone, and speed counts.

How to play

  1. Watch the host screen. Each round shows a rebus of 3–7 emoji hiding one answer, plus its category (movie, song and so on) as a nudge.
  2. Type your answer on your phone the moment you think you've got it. Read the emoji left to right, but treat them as clues, not literal objects: an emoji can stand for a sound, an action or something it's famously linked to.
  3. Guess as many times as you like. Wrong answers cost nothing, so keep trying until you get it or the round ends. Once your answer is accepted, you're locked in for that round.
  4. The first correct answer scores the most, but everyone who solves it before the round ends still scores.
  5. Stuck? Hints appear over time (see below), but every hint you wait for lowers your reward.
  6. After the round, the host screen reveals the answer and the scores, and the next rebus loads.

A Classic game is 10 rounds: you get 30 seconds before the first hint, then a new hint every 10 seconds.

Scoring

Base points depend on how many hints were showing when you answered:

  • No hints yet: 1000 points
  • After hint 1: 600 points
  • After hint 2: 300 points
  • After hint 3: 100 points

On top of that:

  • First correct answer of the round: your total goes up to 1500 (this replaces the base points rather than adding to them).
  • 3 correct in a row: +200
  • 5 correct in a row: +500
  • First to solve 3 rounds in a row: +400

Wrong guesses score 0 but cost nothing. Miss a round and both streaks reset: correct answers and solving first.

Hints

If time runs out before everyone has solved it, hints appear one at a time, and each one lowers the points on offer:

  1. Hint 1: the subcategory (genre and year, for example).
  2. Hint 2: the first letter of each word, with dashes for the rest so you can see how long the words are.
  3. Hint 3: more letters on top of that.

After the third hint you get one last window to answer, and then the solution is revealed.

You will need

📱 A phone per player👥 1-8 players🌐 Internet connection

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