Hypercountdown

Hypercountdown, derived largely from what was known as Countdown Advanced, is a variant of Countdown that was typically always played over MSN Messenger, and is now played on Apterous. It was originally invented by Gevin, and refined by Ben Wilson.

Differences with regular Countdown

Each round of Hypercountdown is designed to be an increase in difficulty and complexity from regular Countdown. Letters rounds and conundrums contain 12 letters instead of 9, numbers rounds have 8 numbers instead of 6 (with 150 and 200 as additional large numbers), and a 4-digit target to reach.

As usual, in the letters rounds, players will only score double points by using all the letters, so a maximum 12-letter word will score a whopping 24 points!

Example game

(Based extremely loosely on Episode 5654)

Rnd	Selection	Player One	Score	Player Two	Others	Max.
1	CGNEAIHPTLMG	CHEATING	8 – 8	CHEATING	PHLEGMATIC*	10
2	OEISRUYTPOIA	mousier ☓	8 – 8	misrule ☓	OPEROSITY*, TOPIARIES*	20
3	NLSDRSEIATEN	RESINATED	17 – 17	DETAINERS	DENTALISES*, TAILENDERS*, TRENDINESS*	30
4	50 75 100 25 9 9 8 10 → 4830	4840 (9 × 50 + 25 + 9) × 10	22 – 22	4840 (9 × 50 + 25 + 9) × 10	RR: 4830 = (100 × 9 + 75 − 9) ÷ (50 ÷ 25) × 10	40
5	LMZIEONARGTS	NORMALIZES	32 – 32	NORMALIZES	GLAMORIZES*, MAGNOLITES*, MATRONIZES*, MELIORANTS*, MORTALIZES*, ROSEMALING*	50
6	IEOFAILHREOI	fiesta ☓	32 – 32	ageist ☓	AEROFOIL*, FIREHOLE*	58
7	CTDVNWEAECSD	VENDACES	40 – 40	VENDACES	DECADENTS*, DESCANTED*	67
8	100 10 6 8 7 10 9 1 → 9450	9450 ((100 − 6) × 10 + 8 + 7 − 10) × (9 + 1)	50 – 50	9450 ((100 − 6) × 10 + 8 + 7 − 10) × (9 + 1)		77
9	HEVALIANSUBQ		50 – 60	VANQUISHABLE (0.75 seconds)		87