Spot the Swap

The gist

Every player gets their own jaw-dropping true fact and secretly swaps one word for a believable fake. Then everyone hunts through everyone else's doctored facts for the lie. Trivia knowledge helps, but a convincing bluff is what wins. Half the fun is staring at "Octopuses have four hearts and blue blood" and wondering whether your memory just betrayed you.

How to play

The host screen (TV) runs the show, and you do everything else on your phone.

1. Tutorial. A short rules intro comes first (about 40 s). The host can skip it, and you'll still get a few seconds before the round starts.
2. Swap (60 s by default). You get your own true fact, laid out word by word. Tap the word you want to fake, type (or pick) a believable replacement and confirm. The fake can't be the same as the original. Once everyone has confirmed, the round moves on early.
3. Guess (30 s each). Now you read the other players' facts on your phone, one rival's doctored fact per turn. Tap the word (or words) you think were swapped. You never see your own fact, and each round you guess every other player's fact exactly once.
4. Reveal. The host screen goes through the facts one at a time: original vs. fake, who got fooled, who spotted it and how many points were handed out.
5. Scores, then the next round. After the final round, the leaderboard crowns the winner.

Scoring

When you guess someone else's fact:

• Correct (you tapped exactly the swapped word or words): 1000 points.
• Streak bonus: 3 in a row earns +200, and 5 or more in a row earns +500 on each of those guesses. One miss resets your streak.
• Half credit (double-swap rounds only): find 1 of the 2 swaps for 500 points. Your streak neither grows nor resets, and the author still counts you as fooled.
• Wrong: 0 points, and your streak resets.

When others guess your fact:

• You get 500 points for every player you fooled, multiplied by your audacity.
• Audacity depends on how hard the words you swapped were: ×1.0 / 1.2 / 1.5 / 1.8 / 2.0, from low to high. Inserted fake words have a fixed medium audacity (×1.5).
• Perfect swap: fool everyone and you get a bonus of 1000 × your multiplier.
• Fool nobody and that fact earns you nothing.

Rules

• 2–8 players.
• Your fake is one word: letters, digits, hyphens and apostrophes only, up to 24 characters, and it has to differ from the original.
• Run out of time on the swap and whatever you already typed is kept, and the game fakes the rest for you. You earn no author points for swaps the game made (half on a double-swap round), but whoever spots them still gets full points.
• No guess in time scores 0, resets your streak and counts as being fooled.
• Guessing on a fact ends early once everyone has answered.
• Tied players share the same place.

Settings

The host sets these before the game:

• Rounds: 4 by default (1–10).
• ⏱ Swap time: 60 s by default (30 s / 45 s / 1 min / 1.5 min).
• 🔥 Double swap: for a chosen range of rounds, you fake 2 words instead of 1. Default: round 2.
• 💡 Pick a word: instead of typing, you choose your fake from 6 suggested words (you can refresh the list unless the host turns that off). Default: round 3.
• ➕ Insert word: instead of replacing a word, you slip a fake word into a gap in the sentence, so the lie is a word that shouldn't be there at all. 1 or 2 inserts (default 1). Default: round 4.

Each twist gets a quick explainer on the TV the first time it comes up. Presets: 🎯 Classic (4 rounds: plain swap, double swap, pick a word, insert word) and 🚀 Quick start (3 rounds, plain swaps only).

Tips

• Subtle beats wild. A fake that's almost right fools more people than an obvious whopper, and fooling people is where the big author points are.
• Swap the hard words. Words that are tricky to fake carry a higher audacity multiplier, so a sneaky swap there can pay up to 2× per fooled player.
• Listen to the rhythm. A swapped word often makes the grammar or tone feel slightly off. Read the fact aloud in your head when you guess.
• Protect your streak. A hot run pays +200 at 3 and +500 per guess from 5 on. On double-swap rounds, a half-credit guess keeps it alive.

Winning

The highest total after the final round wins. Points come from sharp guessing and fooling others, so the champion is usually whoever pairs a good eye with devious swaps. Tied totals share the same place.