How to play Dead Giveaway — free online guess-who-wrote-it game
Everyone answers in secret. Sniff out who wrote each one.
- Players
- 3–4
- Length
- ~10 min
- Type
- Sleuth
- Price
- Free
Dead Giveaway asks everyone the same question and collects the answers in secret. Then it shuffles them, puts them face up, and asks you to work out who wrote which.
It's a game about how well you know your friends' voices. The tells are in phrasing, punctuation and the specific weirdness of what someone chose to say — and once you spot a tell, that person is readable all game.
Your secret answer is on your screen — don't let anyone catch who wrote what.
Free, no app and no sign-up to join — players hop in with a 4-letter code on their own phone.
How to play Dead Giveaway
The host picks the round count
Six rounds is the default; four is quick and eight is a long session.
A prompt drops
Everyone gets the same question and answers it privately on their own screen.
Answers are shuffled and revealed
All the answers come back anonymised, in a random order.
Pin each answer on a suspect
Match every slip to the player you think wrote it. You're making a full set of accusations, not just one.
The reveal names names
Every answer is attributed, and you find out which friend you completely misread.
What Dead Giveaway looks like
How scoring works
You score for every answer you attribute correctly, so a round where you get three of four right pays substantially more than one lucky hit.
There's no penalty for a wrong attribution, so always fill in every slot.
Points accumulate across rounds, and because tells become obvious over time the later rounds tend to be higher-scoring for everyone.
Tips for winning Dead Giveaway
- Write out of character. The easiest way to protect yourself is to answer in a register nobody expects from you.
- Watch punctuation and capitalisation. People are far more consistent about those than about content.
- Length is a tell. Some players always write one word and some always write a paragraph.
- Use elimination. Once you're certain about one answer, the rest of the board gets easier.
Frequently asked questions
How many players do you need for Dead Giveaway?
Three to four. Three is the minimum for the attribution puzzle to have any difficulty.
Does it work with people who don't know each other well?
It's much better with friends. The whole game is recognising how people write, so a room of strangers is mostly guessing.
How long is a game?
About 10 minutes at the default six rounds.
Is it free?
Yes, free to play and free to host, with no account needed to join.
Free, no app and no sign-up to join — players hop in with a 4-letter code on their own phone.