One team draws the truth. Everyone else plants a lie.
Two to four teams and one word. The artist's team has never seen it and has to find it in a list; every other team has, and spends the round writing a fake good enough to be picked instead. Points go to whoever was believed.
Round 2
Spot the real word.
1:00
Decoys close
Yuki draws next
For Deadline Dodgers
Other teams, write a decoy.
2 decoys in
- Quarterly Chaos200
- Deadline Dodgers0
- Snack Ops0
- Feature Creeps0
Other teams write a convincing decoy.
How it works
- 01
One QR code, two to four teams
Everyone scans and lands on a team. Each round one person becomes the artist, and the role rotates, so by the end of the game everybody has had a turn drawing.
- 02
The other teams write the lies
Every team except the artist's sees the real word and writes something plausible instead. Near-duplicates and synonyms are weeded out, so the list is a set of real choices rather than one word spelled six ways.
- 03
Draw first, then vote
The artist draws without seeing the decoys. Submitting locks the drawing and reveals the choices. Their teammates then vote for the real word.
Built for forty people and one screen
Most team games do not survive being scaled up. Eight people around a table can all be in the same round; forty in an all-hands cannot, so the game quietly becomes four people playing and thirty-six watching them play. That is the failure this one is designed around.
The fix is giving the teams who are not drawing the more interesting half. They know the word — which means they are not spectators, they are the opposition, and their job is to write something the other team will believe. A good decoy gets picked, and getting picked pays, so there is a real reason to think about it rather than type the first thing that comes to mind.
What that produces in a room is a specific kind of noise: one team going quiet and squinting at a drawing while three others try very hard to look innocent. It is the same thing that makes hidden-role games work, arriving in a format that fits in a slide, needs no props, and can be run by whoever is already standing at the front.
FAQ
Doodler Decoy, explained
How does Doodler Decoy work?
The room splits into two to four teams. One artist gets a secret word, and the other teams write convincing decoys. The artist draws with all choices hidden. Once the drawing is submitted or drawing time runs out, it locks and the artist's teammates vote for the real word.
How is this different from a normal drawing game?
In a normal drawing game the teams that are not drawing have nothing to do but wait. Here they have the best job in the round: they know the answer, and they are trying to bury it. Every team is playing on every turn, which is what makes it work at forty people rather than eight.
Who votes?
Only the artist's own team, because they are the only people in the room who do not know the word. Everyone else has seen it and spends the round watching their lie either work or fail, which is its own kind of fun.
How does the scoring work?
A correct vote pays the artist's team — they drew it well and read it right. A wrong vote pays only the team whose decoy was picked, and the payout is the base points divided by how many decoys are on the board. A crowded list is therefore worth less per lie, so writing five decoys is not five times better than writing one.
What stops the artist just writing the word?
The rule, and the fact that everyone can see the canvas as it fills. It is a game played in one room in front of everybody, so the enforcement is the same as it is at a table — except that the other teams, who know the word, are watching for it hardest of all.
Can the artist's team see the word early?
No, and that is not a promise their browser is making. The word is delivered to the people entitled to it and to nobody else, so it is not in the slide, not in the broadcast and not sitting in a teammate's page waiting to be found.
How long does a game take?
A round is a couple of minutes — separate windows for writing decoys, drawing and voting — and you decide how many rounds to run. Three or four is a good energiser between sessions; a full rotation is a decent chunk of an offsite.
Do participants need an app or an account?
No. They scan a QR code or open a link and draw, write and vote in their phone's browser. Nothing to install and no sign-up.
How many people can join?
The Free plan supports up to 50 participants per live activity, Pro raises that to 150, and Badass supports up to 300 — enough for a full classroom or an all-hands.
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