Undercover

about this tool

How to play

Undercover is a party game of clues and suspicion for three to twenty people round one phone. Type the names in the order you sit, choose how many Undercovers and Mr. Whites to deal, and press Deal cards. The page lays out one face-down card for each player, and every card holds a word or Mr. White. Then pass the phone round: each player in turn picks any card still in the row, turns it over alone, reads it, and hides it before handing the phone on. The card you pick is who you are, and it leaves the row for the next player.

The cards are shuffled with a fair draw before anyone picks, so picking never changes anyone's chances; it just puts the choice in your hand. Picked the wrong card, or did the phone reach the wrong person? Put the card back before turning it over, and tap the name of whoever has the phone.

• Civilian — gets the common word, and is not told they are a Civilian.
• Undercover — gets a different word close to the common one, and is not told they are the Undercover.
• Mr. White — gets no word at all, and so knows exactly what they are.

Nobody with a word is told whether theirs is the common one. A Civilian and an Undercover see the same kind of card, so the first few clues are as much about working out which side you are on as about catching anyone. Forgotten your card? Check identity, during the clues and votes, lets a player tap their name and look at it again alone.

A round

The page picks who starts, and the clues go round the table from there. Each player gives one short clue — a word or a phrase — that fits their word without saying it. Mr. White never goes first, since the first clue is the one they most need to hear. Then the table talks it over and votes.

Nobody votes on the phone. One person counts the votes out loud and taps the player who got the most, and that player is out at once: the page shows their identity — Civilian, Undercover or Mr. White — to the whole table, but never their word, which is still in play. Tapped the wrong name? Undo vote takes it back before the game moves on. A vote that ends the game shows only who went at first, with Undo still there; See who won turns every card over. On a tie, talk again and re-vote between the tied players before tapping anyone.

If the player voted out is Mr. White, they get one guess at the Civilians' word, typed on the phone. The page checks it at once: capitals, spaces and accents do not matter, a plural counts, for the built-in words another name people really use counts ("Bike" for "Bicycle"), and two swapped letters are forgiven in a longer word. A near miss does not count — "Motel" is not "Hotel". A right guess wins the game for Mr. White. A wrong one says so without showing the word, and play moves on to the next round (unless that was the last Undercover or Mr. White, and the Civilians win).

Who wins

• Civilians win when every Undercover and Mr. White is out.
• Undercovers and Mr. Whites win together if they last until only one Civilian is left.
• Mr. White wins alone, on the spot, by typing the Civilians' word after being voted out.

When the game ends, every card is turned over: who had which word, who was out, and the words in play. Copy result puts the lot on your clipboard for the group chat, and Play again deals new words to the same players.

The words

There are 100 word pairs of everyday things anyone, anywhere, can play with — food, animals, places, things at home, ways to travel, sports and games, jobs, fantasy, nature and the moments of everyday life. Each pair is two things you could describe in the same breath for a round or two — a pancake and a waffle, a wolf and a fox, a dentist and a barber — but not two names for one thing. Which word goes to the Civilians is a coin toss at the deal, so every pair plays both ways round.

Tap categories to play only those; with none chosen, every pair is in play. A pair is not dealt again this visit until every pair in your categories has been.

Your own words

Choose your own words to play with pairs you make up: an inside joke, a language you all speak, or a theme for the night. Type a pair into the two boxes and add it, as many as you like, or upload a list from a spreadsheet. The format is one pair on each row, the first word in column A and the second in column B:

Pancake,Waffle
Wolf,Fox

A header row such as "Word 1, Word 2" is left out, and so is any column after the two words; the page says so when it finds more. Columns left empty are skipped, so words in B and C read the same as words in A and B. An Excel workbook (.xlsx or .xls) or an OpenDocument sheet is read as it is, first sheet only; from Google Sheets, download the sheet as .xlsx or .csv, and from Numbers export it to Excel. A CSV can use commas, semicolons or tabs. Save it as CSV UTF-8 for words with accents or in another alphabet; a plain CSV from Excel reads correctly only for Western European languages. The page says how many pairs it added, and names the first few rows it skipped and why: a row with one word, a word over 40 characters, a pair already on the list, or two words that are really one — "Cat" and "Cats" would let Mr. White win with the wrong word. Up to 500 pairs, from a file up to 1 MB; once the list is full, the rest of a file is not read, and the page says how many rows that left.

Once your list is in, every deal comes from it, a pair not repeated until all have been played. The list folds away, since the phone is in view while it is set up, and it lives only in this page: the file is read on your device and never sent. Whoever adds the words has seen them, so add plenty, and nobody can tell which pair will come up.

On one phone, and nothing saved

The game is built for a phone passed round a table: big buttons, a card that turns over when tapped and ignores the second tap of a double tap, a way to put back a card opened by mistake, and an undo for a vote tapped on the wrong name. The card's turn is skipped when reduced motion is turned on, and a face-down card holds nothing a screen reader could read out. Nothing is stored or sent: the deal lives in this page until you leave or reload it. Most desktop and Android browsers ask before a reload throws a game away; iPhones and links to other pages do not, so finish the game first. For a game with night-time roles instead of words, the Mafia and Werewolf role dealer is played on one phone passed round too, and Word Guess is a word game for one.

questions

How do you play Undercover?

The phone is passed round, and each player picks one of the face-down cards left and reads it alone: every card holds a word, or Mr. White. The Civilians all have the same word; the Undercover has a word close to it and does not know they are different; Mr. White has no word and knows it. Each round every player gives one short clue about their word, the table talks it over and votes, and the player voted out has their identity shown to everyone.

Do we all vote on the phone?

No. The table votes out loud or by pointing, one person counts, and then taps the player who got the most votes. That player is out straight away and their identity — Civilian, Undercover or Mr. White — is shown. If the wrong name was tapped, Undo vote takes it back before the game moves on.

Who wins at Undercover?

The Civilians win once every Undercover and Mr. White has been voted out. The Undercovers and Mr. Whites win together if they last until only one Civilian is left. A Mr. White who is voted out types one guess at the Civilians’ word; the page checks it, ignoring capitals and accents and accepting a plural or, for the built-in words, another common name, and a right guess wins on the spot. A wrong one does not show the word, so play goes on unless the Civilians have won.

How many Undercovers and Mr. Whites should we have?

The page suggests about one Undercover for every four players and one Mr. White from five players up, so six players get four Civilians, one Undercover and one Mr. White. You can change both, as long as the Civilians still outnumber everyone else; 3 to 20 players can play on one phone.

Where do the words come from?

There are 100 word pairs of everyday things anyone can play with, whatever country they are from: food, animals, places, home, travel, sports and games, jobs, fantasy, nature and everyday life. Pick categories to play only those. Pairs are not repeated during a visit until you have played them all.

Can we play with our own words?

Yes. Choose your own words, then type pairs in two at a time, or upload a CSV or Excel file with one pair on each row: the first word in column A and the second in column B. A header row such as Word 1, Word 2 is left out. The page says how many pairs it added and which rows it skipped, and every deal then comes from your list. The file is read on your device and never sent.

Is anything saved or sent?

No. The words and roles are dealt in your browser and live only in this page; nothing is stored or sent, a word list you upload included, and there is no link that carries the deal, since a link would give the secret away. Reloading or leaving the page ends the game; most desktop and Android browsers ask before a reload, but iPhones do not.