Till 4 is now open
How to play
2–10 players, 3 rounds, about ten minutes. Everyone plays at once and nothing is said aloud — it works on a call or on a train.
One belt, by the book
The aisle sign goes up
One category hangs over the belt — things in a fridge, a job, a crisp flavour — and six price tags ride the checkout belt under it, each with a letter and a reduced sticker. The till clock starts: 30 seconds (the host can pick 20 or 45).
Tap to bagsy
Tap a tag. The first tap to reach the till claims it; anyone else who tapped it is told privately who got there first. Everybody sees the tag lift towards you: you're checking the label.
5 seconds to check the label
Only you see the typing window. Type something from the aisle that starts with that letter and press Enter. The till checks one thing — the first letter. Land it and the tag drops into your carrier bag, with your word on a ticket for all to see. Too slow, or the wrong letter, and the tag goes back on the belt and a HOLD sticker goes on your bag for 3 seconds.
Mind the queue
2 seconds between grabs, at most 3 grabs a belt, and a carrier bag holds 7. At 7 you must ring up a word or put a tag back before you can grab again.
The belt stops
When all six are bagged, or the clock runs out (anyone still checking a label gets to finish). Anything left on the belt goes back in the crate.
Price check
Every grab from the belt prints at customer services. Anyone can call a price check on one and it gets stamped DODGY — the stamp never says who called it. Nobody calls one: 3 seconds and on to the next belt. Somebody does: 6 seconds, then an 8-second vote by everyone but the grabber. More bins than keeps and the letter goes back in the crate. A tie keeps it.
Ringing it up
With five or more tags in your carrier bag, go to the till. Tap five in the order you want them and ring it up — any five, any order, nothing to do with the aisle. The till checks the word against the estate's British-English word list.
- A word:you win the round. If any of the five were grabbed off this belt, customer services runs a snap price check on just those grabs first; lose one there and the word doesn't count (no penalty).
- NO SALE: not a word. Put one letter of your choice back in the crate, and a HOLD sticker goes on your bag for 3 seconds.
- Till jammed: if the word list is slow to answer, your tags come straight back with no penalty — ring it up again.
- Two words rung up close together are settled in the order they reached the till.
Winning
Every carrier bag empties back into the crate between rounds. Most rounds won after 3 wins; ties go to whoever held the most letters when round three ended, then to whoever won earliest.
Leaving the queue
Your bag waits for you for the rest of the round. If fewer than two people are left, the shop ends on rounds won.
On a keyboard
Type a letter to bagsy it, type your word, press Enter. At the till, type the letters to line them up, Backspace to take one back, Enter to ring it up.
On the telly
The lobby has a telly link: the belt, the bags, every word and the price check on a big screen. It never shows anybody's typing, or a word before the till answers.