Fake News Factory
One true fact, one missing word. Everybody lies. Only one of you is telling the truth, and it isn't you.
Who's playing?
Names are optional, but they make the scoreboard a lot more fun.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
How many rounds?
Fact categories
Pick at least one category to start
One phone, passed round twice a round: once to write your lie, once to vote.
How to play
- 1Add everyone's names and pick how many rounds you want. Three is quick; eight is an evening.
- 2A true fact appears with one word blanked out. Pass the phone round and each person privately types a lie to fill the gap.
- 3All the lies get shuffled together with the real answer onto one ballot.
- 4Pass the phone round again. Everyone votes for the answer they think is real — you can't vote for your own lie.
- 5Reveal: 1000 points for finding the truth, 500 for every person your lie caught. Highest score after the last round runs the paper.
How to write a lie that works
The instinct everyone has in their first round is to write something outrageous, and it never gets a single vote. A lie only earns points if somebody picks it over the real answer, which means the goal is not to be funny — it is to be the second most believable thing on the ballot. Boring beats brilliant here.
The reliable trick is to borrow the shape of a real answer. If the blank is a number, write a number of the same size and specificity: against “1,200” you want “900”, not “a million”. If the blank is a place, name somewhere real but slightly unexpected. Anything vague — “a machine”, “some kind of bird” — reads as a guess, and guesses get no votes.
The other half of the game is voting, and the tell is usually confidence. The real answer was written by whoever compiled the fact, so it tends to be plain and unadorned. Lies written to impress are longer, cleverer and more specific than they need to be. When two answers look equally plausible, pick the duller one.
One genuine strategic wrinkle: because fooling three people beats finding the truth, it can be worth writing a lie aimed squarely at one specific person's assumptions rather than at the group. In a group of friends that is where the game gets properly competitive — you stop trying to be right and start trying to be trusted.
What's in the fact bank
109 true facts across 6 categories, each with one word taken out. The answers aren't printed here — that would spoil every round for whoever read the page.
🦉 Animal kingdom
Collective nouns, extra hearts and animals that hold hands. The easiest category to bluff in, because nature is already implausible.
18 facts
🍔 Food & drink
Where your dinner came from and what it used to be sold as. Good for groups, because everyone has an opinion about food.
19 facts
🌍 World & places
Borders, extremes and the sheer size of things. Numbers and place names, so bluffs sound authoritative and are hard to check.
18 facts
🔬 Science & invention
Accidental inventions and facts about the universe that sound made up. The category where the truth is hardest to pick out.
18 facts
🎬 Screen & music
Sound effects, working titles and things that went wrong on set. Film buffs think they have an edge here, and they usually do not.
18 facts
🏆 Sport & games
Rules with strange origins and records nobody believes. Works well even with people who claim not to follow sport.
18 facts
Why bluffing games work on a group
Ordinary trivia rewards the person who already knew the answer, which is why one player enjoys it and everybody else waits their turn. Bluffing changes the job: knowing the fact is worth something, but so is understanding what the room will believe. Somebody who knows nothing about badminton can still write the most convincing badminton answer at the table.
That is also why it survives mixed groups — family at Christmas, a work team, four people who have just met — better than almost anything else. Nobody is exposed for not knowing, and the funniest moments come from the wrong answers rather than the right ones. The reveal, where you find out that three people believed your invented nonsense, does more for a room than any correct answer ever does.
It scales from 3 to 10 players, and the character changes as it grows. With three, the ballot is short and the truth is findable, so scores stay close. With eight, there are eight plausible answers on screen and finding the real one starts to feel like an achievement.
Common questions
- How do you play Fake News Factory?
- Each round shows a true fact with one word blanked out. The phone goes round the circle and every player secretly types a lie to fill the gap. The lies and the real answer are then shuffled onto one ballot, the phone goes round again, and everyone votes for whichever answer they think is genuine.
- How does the scoring work?
- You get 1000 points for picking the real answer, and 500 points for every player who votes for your lie. Fooling one person is worth less than spotting the truth, fooling two is worth the same, and fooling three or more is how you actually win.
- How many players do you need?
- Three at a minimum and up to ten. Five or six is the sweet spot — enough lies on the ballot that the truth is genuinely hard to find, but not so many that the voting round drags.
- Do we need one phone each?
- No. One device does the whole game, passed round twice per round: once for everyone to write their lie, once for everyone to vote. Each hand-over sits behind a tap-to-continue screen so nobody sees the previous player's answer.
- Are the facts actually true?
- Yes — every fact in the bank is real and checkable, and each reveal comes with a line of context explaining it. That matters for a bluffing game: if the truth were invented too, there would be nothing to find.
- What happens if I accidentally type the real answer?
- The game tells you and asks for something else, because a ballot with the truth on it twice has no correct answer. You keep the knowledge, though — vote for it and you get the points.
- Is it the same as Fibbage?
- It is the same family of game: a fact with a hole in it, everyone bluffs, the group votes. This version needs no console, no console-connected phones and no purchase — one browser tab on one phone, passed around the circle.
- Can children play?
- Yes, from about eight upwards. Nothing in the fact bank is adult, and the Animal kingdom and Food categories work particularly well with younger players. Writing a convincing lie is genuinely good practice at writing.
- Does it work as a work icebreaker?
- It is one of the better ones, because it asks nothing personal — nobody has to reveal anything about themselves to play. Set it to three rounds and it fits inside the first ten minutes of a meeting.
- Can we play it over a video call?
- Yes, with one adjustment: one person shares their screen and reads the fact out, everyone messages their lie privately to that person to type in, then votes out loud on a count of three. The scoring works exactly the same.