Number Bluff

How to play

Every round starts with a question whose answer is a real number, and usually a surprising one: how long, how many, how old, what percentage. The unit is shown with the question, so you know whether you’re dealing in kilometres, people or per cent.

First, everyone writes a fake. You have 45 seconds to type one number that sounds like it could be the answer, on your own phone, where nobody else can see it. Knowing the real answer doesn’t spoil anything. If you type it, the game stops you with “That’s the real answer!” and you write another number. So if you know an adult has 206 bones, you can’t put down 206, but you know exactly how close to aim your bluff.

Then everyone picks. The real number is mixed in with all the fakes, and the options are lined up from smallest to largest, like points on a number line. You have 30 seconds to choose the one you believe is true. Your own fake is on the list, but you can’t pick it.

Then comes the reveal: who wrote each fake, who fell for which one, and finally the real number. After the last round the highest score wins, and the final screen goes back over every question with its answer and the bluff that fooled the most people.

Scoring

• Finding the real number: +1000.
• Fooling someone: +500 for every player who picks your fake. Fool three people and that’s 1,500.
• The last round counts double, so nobody is out of it until the very end.

If two players write exactly the same fake, it shows up once on the list and both of them score for everyone it fools. If you don’t write anything in time, the game puts a fake on the list for you so the round still works, but you score nothing from it. Fakes also have to make sense for the question: on a percentage, you stay between 0 and 100.

The questions

Before the game the host picks a category: mixed, or one of science, geography, history, sport, food, animals, culture and the human body. The host also chooses how many rounds to play: 3, 5 or 7.

Every answer is a real figure, checked before it went in, and chosen to be odd enough that you can’t quite be sure of it. The questions are written separately for each language, and a good share of them are about that country: its places, its food, its sport, its history. A British room gets plenty about Britain, and American English rooms have their own set.

An example round

Four friends, mixed category. The question: how long is the River Thames? The unit is kilometres.

Jack writes 215. Ellie goes for 410. Priya and Sam both write 290 without knowing it, so it appears only once. The list reads 215, 290, 346, 410.

Now the picking. Priya can’t choose 290, so she goes for 410 and falls for Ellie’s bluff. Sam picks 215. Ellie picks 290. Jack picks 346 without a second thought.

The answer is 346 km. Jack gets +1000 for the truth and +500 for fooling Sam: 1,500 in one round. Ellie gets 500 for fooling Priya, and Priya and Sam get 500 each because Ellie fell for their shared 290. And Jack’s 215 was no accident. He knew the answer, so he wrote the length of the Thames in miles: a number that sounds exactly right, in the wrong unit.

Tips

Aim near the truth, not at it. The best bluffs sit right next to the real answer, where nobody can tell the two apart. If you know the answer, write something close to it.

Think about where your number lands. The options are sorted, so a fake that’s far bigger or smaller than the rest sits alone at the end of the list and looks suspicious. A number in the thick of things is harder to rule out.

Make it look measured. Round numbers look made up. 346 sounds like a fact; 350 sounds like a guess. Pick something a bit awkward.

Play your friends, not just the question. If someone always goes for the biggest number, give them one. If there’s a history buff in the room, write the year they’d expect.

Always write something. The fake the game fills in for you scores nothing, and every friend who falls for your own bluff is worth 500.

Don’t give up early. The last round counts double, so a player who’s well behind can still catch up with one good bluff and a correct pick.

Free rooms and Guezzer Pass

Free rooms play 3 rounds, and the host can still pick any category. With Guezzer Pass, the host opens games of 5 or 7 rounds.

When it works best

Number Bluff takes 3 to 12 players. A 3-round game takes about 5 minutes and a 5-round game about 10. It gets better with more people, because there are more fakes on the list and more friends to fool. Nobody needs to be good at trivia: a player who has never heard of the subject can still win the round with a well-placed bluff. Everyone writes and picks on their own phone, so it plays just as well on a video call as round a table.

Questions people ask

How is it different from classic bluffing games?

Hiding the truth among made-up answers is an old idea. Here every answer is a number, and the options are lined up in order, so a good bluff has to sit in the right place on the line, not just sound right.

Are the numbers real?

Yes. Every answer is a real figure, checked before it went in. A few numbers change over time, such as populations or records, so those are a recent snapshot and today’s figure may be slightly different.

Can I win without fooling anyone?

You can, since finding the truth every round adds up quickly. But a bluff that fools three people is worth more than a correct pick, so the best players do both.

Are the questions the same in every language?

No. Each language has its own questions, written for the people who speak it, with plenty about their own country. American English rooms get their own set too.