SnapMonsterThe group chat game: one link, one leaderboard
Today’s monster is the same for the entire world, which makes it the rare thing a group chat can actually share: one link, one board, one thing to argue about. Nobody installs anything, nobody signs up, and a round takes about a minute.
- No install
- No account to play
- Any phone, any laptop
- 4 players = a cup
Everybody gets the same monster to beat. What you bring is the part that differs.
Why group chats are so bad at games
The barrier is never fun, it is logistics. One person has an old Android, one refuses to install anything, one is on a laptop at work. Anything that needs an account and a download is dead before the third message.
A daily challenge dodges all of it. There is already a shared thing — today’s monster is the same for everyone — so the only thing left to distribute is a URL. Open it, draw one thing or take one photo, and you are on the board.
What a group board looks like
Same boss, different ideas. The object people brought is the interesting column.
- 1Kaitobrought a hair dryerBrilliant!
- 2Meibrought a phone chargerMakes sense
- 3Dadbrought a rubber duckOff topic
- 4Rinbrought a glass of waterBackfired
Group code K7QM · boards are per-day, so yesterday’s loss does not follow anybody around.
You can hand out hearts next to the board too — one heart per idea, never your own. Hearts are what order the day’s Best ideas, and hand-drawn entries come first.
Three steps, no setup
The answer can be drawn or photographed. Today’s challenge has a pen-and-pixel canvas built in, so a drawing made on the spot counts as an object and lands on the same board — which is what keeps the person with nothing within reach from dropping out. A drawing on paper counts too, photographed (turn a drawing into a monster).
The argument is the game
Scores are the boring half. The half people screenshot is best idea in the group — the object the referee liked most, credited by name. “Kaito beat it with a hair dryer” is a sentence that gets replies; “Kaito scored 87” is not.
It also means the person with the strongest collection does not automatically own the chat. A new player with a good idea and a cactus can take the top of the idea board on day one.
Four players and you can run a cup
Once four people in the group have played, the cup option opens: a knockout bracket built from the monsters they actually brought that day, up to eight slots. Nobody drafts a team or picks a lineup — you are entered with whatever you brought that day, which is how you end up with a rubber duck in the semi-finals.
There is also the weekly cup if your group is small and you want a bigger bracket: Monday through Saturday, the top three on each day’s global board take a seat — one seat per player, sixteen at most — and it opens by itself on Sunday at 20:00 Japan time; a week that does not gather four names sits out.
What one round actually looks like in the chat
Somebody pastes the link with one line of text — “today’s challenge: let’s see who in our group has the best idea”. Then it goes quiet for a bit, because everyone is walking around their own house.
What comes back is not scores. It is objects: a photo of the bathroom scales, someone insisting a pepper grinder counts, a small argument about whether a phone charger is really “electric” or just electric-adjacent. The board settles that argument with a verdict, and the verdict is what gets screenshotted. Then tomorrow there is a different monster and the whole thing costs another sixty seconds.
This is the reason it survives in a chat where other games die: nobody has to be online at the same time as anybody else, and missing a day costs you nothing except that day’s bragging.
Compared with the other things groups try
The trade-off is honest: this is not a deep group game. It is a small one that reliably happens.
Good for which groups
If you want the whole world’s board instead of your group’s, that is always there too — the group board is an extra, not a replacement.
Frequently asked questions
How do I start a game for my group chat?
Open today’s challenge, tap the group option and paste the link into the chat. Everyone who opens that link joins the same group board, identified by a short group code. There is nothing to install and nobody has to make an account to play a round.
Does everyone need the same phone or the same app?
No. It runs in the browser, so an old Android, a new iPhone and a laptop all open the same link and see the same board. That is the point of doing it this way — group chats are the one place where everybody has a different device.
What if people play at different times of day?
That is fine and normal. The boss is fixed for the whole day, so a breakfast player and a midnight player are solving the same puzzle.
How many people do we need for a cup?
Four. Once four people in the group have played today’s challenge, you can run a knockout cup using the monsters they actually brought, with up to eight slots.
What if someone has nothing to photograph?
They draw instead. Today’s challenge has a pen-and-pixel canvas built in, a drawing counts as an object, and it lands on the same group board. The referee reads what you drew, not how well you drew it.
Can the group see my photo?
The group board shows the monster your photo became and the name of the object, not the original photo.
Is it free, and is there anything to buy?
It is free to play and free to start a group. You can play without signing up; if you make an account later, the scores you already set come with you.
How long is one round?
About a minute if you photograph something, most of it spent walking around the room deciding what to pick up. If you draw, you can take as long as you like.
Can I stream it or put it in a video?
Yes. Streaming, video and monetising that video are all fine, and you do not need to ask us.
Keep exploring
Send one link
Open today’s challenge, start a group board, and paste it into the chat.
Start a group board