Goatdown

Goatdown is a variant on the general Countdown game that was played over MSN Messenger, and is now popularly played on Apterous, but also occasionally played at real life tournaments.

In 2020, Callum Todd announced a co-event would be played with Goatdown, but this never happened owing to the 2020 COVID-19 hiatus.

Letters rounds

The picking player chooses the first 8 letters as normal, but instead of choosing a consonant or a vowel for the ninth letter, players may select any specific letter of the alphabet. This can be chosen with the keyboard or by clicking the letter in the interface. The player is given 6 seconds to make this decision. For example: 'consonant, consonant, vowel' might become 'consonant, consonant, E'. Scoring is the same as in standard Countdown.

Numbers rounds

Numbers rounds are unchanged.

Conundrums

Conundrums still have 9-letter answers, but only 8 letters are shown. Only one 9 letter word can be made by adding an extra letter to these 8, and this is the required answer, which scores 10 points as usual. After the standard time is up (e.g. 30 seconds), the missing letter is revealed and an extra half-time (e.g. 15 seconds) is added. However solving the conundrum during this extra time is only worth 7 points.

Example game

(Specifically chosen letter in italics).

Rnd	Selection	Player 1	Score	Player 2	Others	Max.
1	OAOTTRTTW	TATTOO	6 – 6	TATTOO		6
2	SEDOTODLS	DOODLES	13 – 13	DOODLES	DOTLESS*, LOOSEST*, STOOLED, TODDLES, TOODLES*	13
3	OIEARSDJL	DARIOLES	21 – 21	DARIOLES	RADIOLES*	21
4	25 5 4 6 7 3 → 704	704 (25 × 7 + 6 − 5) × 4	31 – 31	704 (25 × 7 + 6 − 5) × 4		31
5	BEVUQIPHF	EQUIP	36 – 36	EQUIP	PEQUI*, PIQUE	36
6	IOUABRNDA	AROUND	36 – 43	OUABAIN	AIRBAND*, BANDORA*, BANDURA*, INBOARD*, UNBRAID*	43
7	KONITURAI	RAINOUT	43 – 50	RAINOUT	OUTRANK*	50
8	4 5 10 8 7 2 → 761	760 ((7 + 2) × 10 + 5) × 8	50 – 57	760 (7 × 2 + 5) × 4 × 10	Best: 761 = (10 × 8 + 4) × (7 + 2) + 5	60
9	FOURSWOR...		50 – 67	SORROWFUL (10 seconds)		70

See also

• Hypergoatdown