Truth or Dare
Truth or dare online: how to play a fair, friendly game with one phone
Truth or dare is one of the easiest party games there is: on your turn you either answer a question honestly or take on a small challenge. It needs no board, no cards and no preparation, which is why it turns up at sleepovers, family gatherings and year-end parties all over the world. This app puts the whole game on one phone. You type the players’ names, choose a pack that suits the room, and the app decides whose turn it is and flips one card at a time. This guide explains how to play, a few house rules that keep the evening fun, how to make sure everyone feels comfortable, and a little of the game’s long history.
How to play with this app
Start by choosing who is playing. Add names, one per line, for 2 to 20 players, or pick Skip names if you would rather just pass the phone around the circle. Then choose a pack. Friends is for a relaxed group that knows each other, Family is suitable for all ages, Work party is written for colleagues at a team dinner or year-end celebration, and Couples is a sweet, light pack for two people or a group of pairs. Each pack has well over forty truths and forty dares in every language.
Press start and the app shows whose turn it is. That player taps Truth, Dare or Random. Random lets the app flip a fair coin for them. The card turns over and shows one question or challenge. When the player is finished, tap Done to move on to the next person. If a card does not fit the moment, tap New card for another one of the same type. When the group is ready to stop, tap Finish to see a short summary of the game.
- Add 2 to 20 names, or choose Skip names.
- Pick the pack that matches your group.
- On each turn choose Truth, Dare or Random.
- Answer or do the card, or swap it with New card.
- Tap Done for the next player, and Finish when you are done.
Fair turns and fresh cards
Nobody likes a game where the same two people keep getting picked. The app shuffles the list of players with your browser’s cryptographic random number generator, the same kind of randomness used for security, and works through that order. Everyone gets exactly one turn before anyone gets a second one, and when a new round of turns begins, the person who just went is never chosen first again. With Random, the choice between truth and dare is a true fifty-fifty.
Cards work the same way. Each pack keeps a shuffled deck of truths and a separate deck of dares, and the app deals from the top. A card will not come back during your game until the whole deck has been used, so even a long evening keeps feeling new. Player names are kept only on your device and never sent anywhere.
House rules that make it more fun
Before you start, agree on a couple of simple rules. A popular one is a time limit: thirty seconds to answer a truth and a minute to finish a dare. Another is the follow-up rule, where the group may ask one extra question after a truth, but only one. Some groups like a points system where completing a dare earns two points and answering a truth earns one, with a small, silly prize for the winner, such as choosing the next song.
Keep dares in the room. Every challenge in the app can be done on the spot without special equipment, without leaving the room and without posting anything online. If your group writes its own extra dares, keep to the same idea: quick, harmless and funny for everyone watching, not just for the person who suggested it.
Keeping it kind: anyone can pass
The most important rule of a good truth or dare game is that anyone can pass, at any time, without giving a reason. A question that is easy for one person can be uncomfortable for another, and a dare that seems silly to one player might feel awkward to someone else. In this app, passing is as simple as tapping New card or moving on to the next player. Nobody should tease or pressure a person who passes.
It also helps to choose the right pack for the room. At an office party, stick to Work party even if a few colleagues are close friends. When children are playing, use Family. Respect personal space during dares that involve another person, and ask before including anyone. If the mood changes, it is completely fine to finish early and switch to another game.
Where truth or dare comes from
Games built on questions and forfeits are very old. In eighteenth-century England people played a parlour game called Questions and Commands, in which a leader asked players to answer a question or carry out a command, and those who refused paid a small forfeit. Similar games of confession and challenge were played at gatherings in many countries long before anyone called them truth or dare.
The modern name spread in the twentieth century, especially through school trips, summer camps and sleepovers, and today the game has a local name almost everywhere: Action ou vérité in France, Wahrheit oder Pflicht in Germany, and countless others. The rules stay delightfully simple. A phone simply removes the arguments about whose turn it is and gives everyone a fresh card, so the group can focus on the laughter.