Hidden Code rules

Players and teams

A table seats 4 to 10 players in two teams, red and blue. In the lobby everyone picks a team and a role: spymaster or operative. Each team has one spymaster.

Players who do not choose are placed at random and evenly. Each team needs at least two people; if a team is left without a spymaster, its first member becomes one. The table host starts the game once at least four people are connected.

The board: 25 words

The server lays out 25 words. The team that goes first hides 9 agents on the board, the other team 8. Seven more cards are neutral bystanders and one is the assassin.

Spymasters see the colour of every card, operatives see only the words. The team with nine agents always starts.

The spymaster’s clue

On their turn the spymaster says one word and a number — how many cards on the board the word points to. Only the spymaster of the active team gives a clue, and it cannot match a word still hidden on the board. A hyphen inside the word is fine.

The number sets the limit: operatives may open at most that many cards plus one, to catch an agent they missed earlier. With 0 or “∞” there is no limit.

Commenting on the clue or hinting with your voice or gestures is not allowed: it breaks the whole point of the game.

The team’s turn

Operatives discuss their ideas out loud and open cards one by one. Their own card — the turn goes on. A neutral or enemy card — the turn passes to the opponents at once, and an enemy agent opened by mistake counts for them.

You can stop at any moment: when there are no confident guesses left, an operative ends the turn.

The assassin and victory

Open the black assassin card and your team loses at once; the opponents win.

Otherwise the team whose agents are all revealed wins — even if the last one was opened by the opponents by mistake. There are no points in Hidden Code: all that matters is the moment the last agent is revealed.

Timers and table settings

There are two timers: one for the spymaster’s clue and one for the team’s turn. Both are off by default; in the settings you can choose 30, 45, 60 or 90 seconds. With the turn timer on, every correct card adds 15 seconds to it; when time runs out, the turn passes. The host can change timers during a game too.

The host chooses the word language — English or Russian — and one of three difficulty levels. With an English interface a new table starts with English words. Themed word sets and the 18+ set are available in Russian only.

The host can pause the game and remove a player. Anyone who arrives after the start watches as a spectator and can sit down as an operative mid-game.

How to play on Omerta

Sign in, press Create, choose Games and Hidden Code, then Create and sit down. A table can be made private with a password. Invite friends from the table menu: an invitation on the site, a message in Telegram or the table link.

Voice and video work at the table, so your team can argue out loud as if sitting together. After a game, New game returns everyone to the lobby with the same settings: teams are chosen again and a new board is dealt.

• Hidden Code — the game page and common questions
• Guess the Word rules — another team word game
• Hint Taken rules — one-word hints without teams