Party & Social
Hot Spud
Pass the ticking bomb with a word. Lose a round and you are out.
- Category
- Party & Social
- Players
- 2–10 players
- Duration
- ~5 minutes (estimate)
- Best group size
- We recommend 4 to 8 players, enough for several rounds of eliminations without long waits. It works with as few as 2.
How to play
Hot Spud is a last-one-standing word game that works with as few as two players. One player holds the bomb at a time.
If the bomb is in your hands, the TV shows a letter, and you have 5 seconds to type a real word starting with that letter. Words need at least three letters, are checked against a dictionary, and cannot repeat a word already used that round. A valid word passes the bomb to another random player still in the game, a fresh letter appears, and their 5-second clock starts. Every pass resets the clock, so the pressure keeps bouncing around the room.
Whoever is holding the bomb when the timer hits zero loses the round and is eliminated for the rest of the game. The number of rounds is set when the game starts at one fewer than the number of players, so the final round always leaves exactly one winner.
Scoring rewards survival. Every player who makes it through a round earns 200 points, and the last one standing gets a 600-point bonus on top. The fun is the panic: simple words vanish from your head the moment the bomb lands on you.
Tips for hosts
- Tell players that short, ordinary words are fine. Three letters is enough, and speed matters more than vocabulary.
- Eliminated players stay in the room, so let them heckle. It makes the final rounds louder.
- Run it at the start of the night. It teaches everyone how phone controls work in under a minute.
- With only two players, it becomes a quick duel, which is perfect as a tiebreaker.
Best for
Best for: Groups who like fast, loud, easy-to-learn pressure.
Play Hot Spud
Open Sofa Showdown on a laptop or computer connected to your TV, choose Hot Spud from the game shelf, and share the four-letter room code with your friends.
Play now Opens hosting on this screen. Nothing starts until you choose a game.