Crocodile: explain the word, never say it

Your group chat has gone quiet and nobody knows how to wake it up. Add Crocodile, send /start, and within a minute half the group is arguing about what word the host could possibly mean. 🐊

The bot handles the boring parts. It hands out the secret word, watches the guesses, awards points and keeps a leaderboard, so people only need to explain and guess.

The rules fit in one breath

One person is the host, everyone else guesses. The host gets a hidden word from the bot and describes it in the group in their own words, without using words that share the same root.

Players type their guesses straight into the chat. The first one to write the right word scores a point and the bot announces the winner of the round. The full rules are always one tap away with /rules.

Whoever sends /start becomes the host. No debates about who goes first: the fastest finger takes it. 🙋

Scoreboards that start friendly rivalries

The words are fun, but the rankings are what keep people coming back. Crocodile tracks stats and shows them on request:

• /rating lists the top 25 players in your chat;
• /globalrating shows the 25 best players across every chat;
• /chatrating ranks whole chats against each other;
• /mystats shows your own numbers.

The global ladder turns a casual round into a sport, especially when someone in your group keeps guessing after the first hint. 🏆

A very busy bot

Crocodile has been around for years and is one of the most played game bots in Russian-speaking Telegram groups. Telegram shows around 157,000 monthly active users.

One stats update from the developers counted more than 60,000 chats, about 286,000 players and over 10 million games played. When traffic spiked, the team spun up extra copies of the bot so games would not lag.

The original code was open source and written in Go. Later the project moved to a private repository, where development continues.

Hangman, forum topics and premium chats

Tired of explaining? Type /hangman for a round of classic hangman, where the group guesses letters one at a time. ✏️

Since spring 2026 the bot also works in forum-style groups split into topics. You can give the game its own topic so the guessing does not bury the main conversation.

Chats can buy premium with /buy. It opens up chat settings under /settings and lets admins wipe the leaderboard with /resetrating, handy before a new season. The interface language is switched with /language.

Tips for a better round

1. Add the bot to your group and make sure it can read messages, or it will miss the answers.
2. Agree on hint rules: are voice messages allowed, can the host switch to another language?
3. Send /start and explain the first word.
4. Check /rating once a week and give the leader some well deserved applause.

A good round depends on the host. Describe a situation rather than a dictionary definition: "the thing you search for every morning before leaving" gets guessed far quicker than a dry description. 😉

The game itself is mostly played in Russian, so it works best for groups where everyone is comfortable with the language.