How to play BETRAYAL

A party game of deception played around one table with one phone. Every player knows the same secret, except the spies. By day you ask questions and vote; by night the players with powers act in the dark. The goal is simple: catch the traitor before they guess the secret or take over the table.

What you need

• One phone with the game (it runs in the browser and can be added to the home screen).
• 4 to 20 players sitting in a circle.
• 10 to 30 minutes depending on the number of players.

1. Setup

Type the players' names in the order you are sitting, because the phone is passed in that order. Then choose:

• What do we play? The category of the secret: places, countries, jobs, fruits, or a mix. Everyone knows the category, even the spy.
• Special roles: detective, seer, guardian, witch, hunter, cupid, little girl, thief, saboteur, jester. Every role works with any number of players; if you turn on more roles than there are seats, they are picked at random.
• Number of spies: automatically one spy up to 10 players, two up to 15, and three after that.
• Length of the day and the voting style (secret or group).

2. Revealing the cards

The screen says: “Pass the phone to Sara”. Sara takes the phone, taps “I'm Sara”, then presses and holds the card to see her role. Once she has read it she taps “Hide the card and pass the phone”. Press-and-hold stops a card from being revealed by accident while the phone is passed around.

Every player sees the secret (for example “The secret job: pilot”) except the spies, who only see that they are spies, and who their partners are if there is more than one.

3. Day: the questions

Put the phone in the middle. The game picks who starts. That player asks any other player a question out loud; they answer and then become the one who asks. You can't immediately ask back the person who just asked you.

The whole art is balance: if your question or answer is too obvious, you hand the secret to the spy. If it is too vague, you become the suspect.

4. The vote

When time runs out (or earlier if you agree) the vote begins:

• Secret vote: the phone is passed and each player alone picks who they want out. On a tie, the vote is repeated between the tied players; if they tie again, nobody goes out.
• Group vote: you discuss out loud and pick one suspect, or “we didn't agree”.

The role of the player voted out is revealed to everyone. If they are a spy, they get one last chance: they guess the secret from the list, and if they are right the spies win at once. And if the jester is voted out, the jester wins alone!

5. Night

If the game isn't over, night falls. The phone goes to every living player, so nobody can tell who has a power:

• The spies choose a victim.
• The detective investigates a player: “looks suspicious” or “probably innocent”.
• The guardian protects a player from the night attack.
• Everyone else picks who they suspect; the result appears in the morning as the “village opinion”.

6. Morning and the end

In the morning the game announces who died and reveals their role, or that the guardian saved the victim. Then a new, shorter day begins. The game goes on until:

• The civilians win by getting every spy out.
• The spies win by guessing the secret, or when their team equals the rest of the living players in number.
• The jester wins if voted out.

Points

Points add up across games, so play several rounds to find out who is the best traitor in the group.

Play alone: Today's secret and Spy training

Nobody around? Tap “🎯 Play alone” on the home screen. Here you are the spy: you only know the category, and clues appear one by one, from vague to obvious. Each wrong guess reveals a new clue, and you have 5 tries.

• 📅 Today's secret: one secret a day, the same for every player. One try only, then share your coloured squares with your friends and keep your daily streak 🔥 going.
• 🕵️ Spy training: unlimited rounds from the category you choose. You win 5 points if you get the secret on the first clue, then 4, 3, 2, 1.