🧊 Two Truths and a Lie

🕹️ How to play

1. Start without setting anything up: The page opens on a demo round: three statements from a made-up player, tap the one you think is invented and it flips instantly. When you are ready for the real thing, hit Start a real game, paste your group's names one per line, pick a topic level, and you are playing.
2. Take your turn as the teller: The screen hands you three topic prompts to jog your memory — things like 'name a hobby nobody here would guess you have'. Reshuffle as often as you like, then say your three statements out loud: two true, one invented. Nothing is typed in. Tap the number of the one you made up and confirm.
3. Pass the phone round to collect guesses: The phone goes to each guesser in turn. They tap 'I'm X, go', pick one of the three cards, and lock it in. The screen covers itself immediately and never shows whether they were right, so nobody's reaction gives the answer away. Anyone can skip their guess without affecting the stats.
4. Reveal together and let it score: The phone comes back to the teller, who taps Reveal together. Everyone sees where the votes landed, then the real answer, then the round's points broken down line by line: +10 for spotting the lie, a streak bonus, +5 per person fooled for the teller, and +10 for fooling the whole table.

📖 Rules & variants

Players and turns: 3 players minimum, 4–12 is the sweet spot, 16 is the cap. Two players will not work — with a single guesser the whole game is a coin flip. Everyone tells once by default (you can set two turns each), and the rotation follows the order of the names you entered. When everyone has told, you get the scoreboard; Play another round keeps the scores and carries on.

How a round runs: the teller says three statements aloud, two true and one invented, then marks the invented one on screen — the game will not move on until they do. Guessers lock in one at a time and the screen covers itself immediately, showing no verdict at all. Everything is revealed at once when the teller taps reveal, which stops later guessers from reading earlier reactions. For big groups, quick-tally mode skips the passing and lets the teller record everyone's pick on one screen — faster, but the picks are visible to the room.

Scoring: spotting the lie is worth 10 points. Getting it right n times in a row adds (n−1)×2 more, capped at 10 per round; a wrong guess or a skip resets the streak. The teller earns 5 points per person fooled, plus a 10 point perfect-lie bonus for fooling every effective guesser when there are at least two of them. Skipping scores nothing and stays out of every denominator, and a round where everybody skips scores nothing at all.

Titles and ties: two honours are awarded at the end. Best liar goes to the highest share of guessers fooled while telling; best lie detector to the highest share of lies spotted while guessing. Both always show the numerator and denominator. Equal rates are broken by the larger denominator, because more samples is stronger evidence, and no title is given at all below three samples — it says 'not enough data' instead. Equal total scores share a rank and the next rank skips (1, 1, 3).

House rules worth trying: give the table one minute of open discussion before anyone locks in; let a teller who is stuck hand their turn to the next person; or split a group larger than twelve into two games and compare scoreboards afterwards. Topic levels run from work icebreaker through school, friends and a close-circle level that is locked by default because the prompts get more personal.

Bluffing technique: make the lie boring and the truths strange. Most people do it backwards on the first turn — they invent the most dramatic line and get caught immediately. Take a real story and change one thing: the year, the place or the number. Keep all three the same length and tone, do not rush to explain afterwards, and never claim something the room can test on the spot.

❓ FAQ