Verse Duel online with a friend
You need no paper and no account: one of you opens a duel, shares its link, and you both play in your own browsers, on a phone or a computer. Two players, as many spectators as you like up to twelve, and it's free.
Opening a duel
- Press New duel, pick a nickname, and choose the duel's settings (below).
- Send the duel's link to your opponent. Whoever opens it first picks a nickname and takes the second seat; nobody signs up. Once both seats are taken, the room is yours alone, and the host can remove a stranger who took one.
- The host starts the duel; the game draws who opens and the rhyme. The room has a chat for everything in between, with quick reactions.
- At the end, Clone opens a new duel with the same settings and a new rhyme, for the rematch.
The choices
- Mode: peaceful, with hearts and a badge for each of you, or competitive, with points for every verse on the form, stumbles that can end the duel early, and a podium at the end.
- Verses and time: 3, 5 or 8 verses each, of 60, 90 or 120 seconds a verse.
- Spectators: none, or up to twelve friends who watch the duel, read every verse once its turn is over, and chat, without writing one. They need the link while a spectator's seat is free.
- How long the verses stay after the duel: ten minutes, an hour or a day. After that they are gone for good.
Where to play
- On a video call, each on your own phone: read your verses out loud as they come in, and let the audience cheer.
- At a party, two poets with their phones and everyone else watching on theirs as spectators.
- Miles apart: the duel keeps the turns and the time, so you can trade verses over a tea break.
New to the form? How to write a duel verse