Letters game

In the Countdown letters game, there are 2 stacks of letter tiles, one for vowels and one for consonants. One player calls out "vowel" or "consonant", and a tile is drawn from the appropriate stack and placed on the board, revealed to both players immediately. The same player keeps calling out "vowel" or "consonant" until a total of 9 letters have been selected.

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There is a minimum requirement of at least 3 vowels and at least 4 consonants.

Once all 9 letters have been selected, a 30 second timer begins, the iconic Countdown clock starts ticking, and the Countdown music starts playing. The players have 30 seconds to find the longest words they can using some or all of the available letters. They usually write down the words they find as they go.

Example: GYHDNOEUR

We can make the word "dog" because all of "D", "O", and "G" appear, but we can't make the word "good" because there is only one "O". Unfortunately "dog" is too short so it scores 0 points.

A better word from the same letter set would be "ground", which is 6 letters long and scores 6 points. The best word is "greyhound", which scores 18 points due to using all of the available letters.

Once the 30 seconds are up, the players each declare the length of their chosen word. Having declared the word lengths, whoever had the shorter word declares their word first. If both players had the same word then the second player typically shows their paper to one of the hosts, to prove it.

Words are checked by Dictionary Corner to make sure they are in the dictionary. If the word is not in the dictionary then it is not allowed, and the player scores 0.

If both players have invalid words, they both score 0. If both players have valid words and one player's word is longer than the other, then only the player with the longer word scores points. If they both have equal-length words then they both score points. Points are scored as follows: