Ready, steady…

…Go!

That's how I, child of the 1980's American Midwest, still urge racers of any kind into starting position. But apparently the lingo these days (at least for online games) is "Ready up." And so that's what we've adopted in TongueTied's latest feature, launched last Friday: fast mode.

As with ordinary games, you begin by inviting a friend from the lobby, but now in addition to choosing languages you can toggle to "fast mode." Your friend will be sent an invite, and once you've both indicated you're ready to go, the game is on. Each player gets 60 seconds a turn, and if you fail to beat the clock twice, you lose. (Tip: under duress, pass.)

We started with a whole bag of tiles — 30-minute sprints that left us winded — but revised down to half a bag, for games that clock in at 15 minutes max.

We'd love feedback. My fast-mode play reminds me of my tennis game: scrappy but relatively effective. Eric has noticed his limited knowledge of our game languages is a greater disservice here than in normal games. Ezra continues to dominate — but then again, he spent his honeymoon playing Scrabble.

I leave you with an image from a recent fast-mode game. What would you have played? I engaged in a lot of tile flipping to turn in QUACK, for 32 points, helping me take the lead one move later.

And yet I lost in the final seconds. A rematch has been arranged.