How to play Forgery — free online hide-the-fake drawing game
Everyone fakes one tile of the picture. Find theirs, hide yours.
- Players
- 2–4
- Length
- ~12 min
- Type
- Draw
- Price
- Free
Forgery shows the room a detailed pixel scene and then asks every single player to vandalise it. You each secretly repaint one small tile from blank, trying to make your fake blend into the picture around it.
Then the doctored scene goes up — everyone's forgeries spliced in at once — and the hunt begins. You're looking for everyone else's tile while hoping nobody finds yours, which makes it the rare drawing game where being unremarkable is the skill.
Everyone paints on their own screen — don't peek at your neighbour's forgery.
Free, no app and no sign-up to join — players hop in with a 4-letter code on their own phone.
How to play Forgery
The host picks the round count
Five rounds is the default. Three is a quick game, eight is a long one.
A detailed scene appears
Everyone sees the same picture. Study it — this is the only look you get at the original.
Secretly repaint one tile
You're given one small tile, blanked to white, and you repaint it from scratch. You judge your work only against the live full-scene preview, so camouflage is guesswork.
The doctored scene goes up
Every player's forgery is spliced into the picture at once. Your own tile is unmarked — you know where it is, but nobody tells you.
Hunt the fakes
Tap the tiles you think were repainted. The reveal shows every forgery and who painted it.
What Forgery looks like
How scoring works
You score for catching rivals' forgeries and for surviving the hunt with your own tile unfound. Both halves matter, so pure hiding and pure hunting are equally viable.
Leaving obvious damage — a white pixel, a hard edge, a colour that isn't in the scene's palette — is what gets you caught. There's no penalty for painting badly except being found.
Two players can land on the same tile, and a tricky spot nobody wants to examine is often the safest place to hide.
Tips for winning Forgery
- Match the colours before the shapes. A tile with the right palette reads as part of the picture even if the detail is wrong.
- Continue the lines that cross your tile's edges. A broken horizon is the single easiest fake to spot.
- Never leave white. An unpainted pixel is a confession.
- When hunting, scan edges rather than centres. Forgeries fail at their borders long before they fail in the middle.
Frequently asked questions
How many players do you need for Forgery?
Two to four.
Do I need to be good at pixel art?
No. You're painting one small tile and the goal is to be unremarkable rather than impressive — matching the surrounding colours does most of the work.
Can two people forge the same tile?
Yes, and it's allowed on purpose. The board shows the later painter's pixels, which gives the earlier one a private tell.
How long is a game?
About 12 minutes at the default five rounds — one of the longer games here, because painting and hunting are separate stages.
Is it free?
Yes, free to play and free to host, and joining needs only the room code.
Free, no app and no sign-up to join — players hop in with a 4-letter code on their own phone.