Word Bomb

Word Bomb

Word Bomb is an elimination word game in which players must submit valid dictionary words containing an assigned prompt string before a countdown timer expires.

Starting a Game

A game is created with /wordbomb, which takes several configuration options directly as command parameters:

Bomb speed

Slow, Standard, Fast, or Rapid, controlling the starting timer and how quickly it decreases

Starting difficulty

an optional starting point among the difficulty buckets described below (ignored if Rapid speed is selected)

Prompt length

a minimum and maximum length between 2 and 4 letters (2 to 3 by default)

Special characters

whether apostrophes, hyphens, both, or neither are allowed in submitted words (both by default)

Category

an optional filter restricting prompts to a themed word list (any category by default)

Running the command posts a lobby showing the chosen settings, with the footer "Press Join to participate. Press Start when ready. Max 16 players." The host can invite specific players from a dropdown, and other players can join the lobby directly; the host then starts or cancels the game.

If the host starts a game without anyone else joining, it becomes a solo match: "🎮 Game is starting! YOU have 🧡🧡🧡 3 lives. Use words containing the prompt or lose a life. ⚠️ You are doing a solo game against yourself! ✨ Whatever happens here won't influence your statistics. ✨" In a multiplayer game, the start message instead reads: "🎮 Game is starting! Each player has 🧡🧡🧡 3 lives. Use words containing the prompt or lose a life."

Rules

1. Each player starts with 3 lives.
2. On a player's turn, the bot assigns a prompt, a short letter sequence, and the player must submit a word from the dictionary that contains that sequence, has not already been used by any player in the game, and matches the game's special-character settings.
3. Invalid submissions, words that do not contain the prompt, are not in the dictionary, or have already been used, are rejected and do not cost a life; the player may keep trying until time runs out.
4. If time runs out before a valid word is submitted, the player loses a life.
5. A player who loses all 3 lives is eliminated.
6. The last remaining player wins the game.

Words are lowercased and spaces are converted to hyphens before checking, so "word bomb" is evaluated as "word-bomb".

Timer

Each bomb speed has its own starting time and minimum time:

Speed	Starting Time	Minimum Time
Slow	12 seconds	4 seconds
Standard	8 seconds	3.5 seconds
Fast	6 seconds	3 seconds
Rapid	3 seconds	3 seconds (does not decrease)

For speeds other than Rapid, the timer holds steady for the first 10 turns, then decreases by 0.2 seconds every other turn through turn 30, then by 0.2 seconds every turn after that, down to the speed's minimum. Each time the timer would decrease, there is also a small chance (roughly 1 in 10) that it instead increases by half a second or a full second, up to the speed's starting time.

Difficulty and Prompts

When a game is not set to Rapid speed, prompts are drawn from fifteen named difficulty buckets, based on how many dictionary words contain that prompt. A host may choose a specific starting bucket, or let the bot begin at the most common end and work toward rarer prompts as the game continues. Rapid speed draws from very short prompts, one or two letters long, rather than using the difficulty buckets.

Bucket	Dictionary Matches
Tranquil	120,000+
Gentle	100,000–119,999
Steady	80,000–99,999
Unruly	60,000–79,999
Fierce	40,000–59,999
Ruthless	20,000–39,999
Brutal	12,000–19,999
Twisted	8,000–11,999
Aberrant	4,000–7,999
Chaos	2,000–3,999
Nightmare	900–1,999
Unreal	300–899
Void	100–299
Oblivion	10–99
Suicide	1–9

The available category filters, which restrict prompts to a themed word list instead of the full dictionary, are: Blacklist, Cosmos, Geology, Languages, Mathology, Ideologies Religions & Cults, Songs & Albums, Creatures, Plants, Colorology, Food & Drinks, Phobias, Pokedex, Toponyms, Ologies, Numbers, Palindromes, Longs, and Smolz.

Turn Display

Each turn, the bot posts a message in this form: "{emoji} {player} Your turn! word must include {prompt}! ⏱️ You have {time} seconds. 🧡 Lives left: {lives}. This prompt has {count} solves in the dictionary. 🔜 Next up: {next player}." The emoji reflects the active difficulty bucket, and the solve count lets players judge how many valid answers likely remain for that prompt.

Ending a Game

When a player is eliminated, the bot posts "☠️ {player} has been eliminated!" and removes them from the turn order. When the game ends, a leaderboard and match statistics are posted.

Statistics

Multiplayer results are recorded per player and contribute to the following tracked stats: games played, wins, win rate, turns played, average word length, and total characters used. These can be viewed with /wordbomb_stats and compared on the server leaderboard with /wordbomb_leaderboard. Solo games do not affect statistics.