Gotcha: Bluff Party Trivia Game

Write fake answers, fool your friends, and spot the truth in a real-time party trivia mobile game where the best liar wins.

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One question. Several convincing lies. Only one truth—and your friends are trying to hide it.

Inspiration — The Party Game Where Lying Wins

Picture a group of friends answering the same strange trivia question. Everyone knows they may be wrong, so they write the most convincing lie they can and try to sell it with a straight face. The room erupts when the truth appears and somebody's ridiculous bluff has fooled everyone.

That moment inspired Gotcha. It is not a quiz that only rewards the person who knows the most; it is a social bluffing game where creativity, confidence, and knowing your friends can win the round.

What It Does — Bluff. Vote. Reveal.

Gotcha is a real-time online multiplayer party game. Create a private room with a short code or enter Quick Play, then answer an unusual question with a believable fake. Gotcha mixes every bluff with the real answer, players vote, and the reveal shows who found the truth—and who fell for whom.

Correct guesses score points, but fooling another player scores too. A few fast rounds build toward a podium where the room's sharpest bluffer takes the win.

Gotcha online gameplay from room to winner

AI Pack Creation — Any Topic Becomes Game Night

The AI Deck Workshop lets a player choose a topic and language, then turns that idea into a private 30-question pack. It can be a fandom, a niche interest, local culture, or an inside joke only one friend group understands. Every question arrives with the correct answer and three convincing alternatives shaped for Gotcha's bluffing format.

Creation happens in the background, so the player can leave the workshop and receive a notification when the pack is ready. The pack belongs privately to its creator; if generation cannot finish, the cost is refunded instead of leaving behind a broken purchase.

Gotcha AI Deck Workshop and generated packs

Online on iOS and Android

Friends can meet in code-based private rooms, while Quick Play and bots make it easy to start a complete match without waiting for a full group. Every device shares the same live room, timer, answers, votes, and reveal.

Gotcha is publicly available on iOS, with Android currently in closed beta. The game and AI Pack Creation support both English and Turkish.

Fair by Design

Gotcha's economy expands what a group can play without changing who can win. Gold is earned through play and rewards, then used to unlock curated packs. Diamonds power AI Pack Creation and can be converted into gold. Gotcha Premium opens the curated library and new curated releases while the membership is active.

Only the host needs access to the selected pack, so friends can join the same game without meeting individual paywalls. RevenueCat manages consumable diamond packs, a non-consumable starter bundle, and monthly or annual Premium subscriptions. None of them change scores, timers, answer quality, or voting power.

Gotcha Gold, Diamonds, Premium, and RevenueCat purchases

Accomplishments We're Proud Of

Gotcha has grown from a party-game idea into a product people can download and play:

  • A working online bluff–vote–reveal loop with rooms, bots, reconnects, scoring, and a podium.
  • Private bilingual AI packs built around any topic.
  • Curated content, daily rewards, Gold, Diamonds, and Premium working as one fair economy.
  • A distinctive game-show interface with sound, haptics, motion, and clear live feedback.
  • Version 0.0.5 released on the App Store & Play Store on August 7, 2026.

Challenges We Ran Into

Building a reliable real-time multiplayer system was our biggest engineering challenge. Timers, bluffs, votes, reconnects, bots, and scores had to stay in sync on every phone, even when a connection dropped.

Shipping the same app on iOS and Android brought a different set of problems. Store rules, signing, purchases, notifications, and device behavior vary between platforms, so both releases needed careful testing.

AI packs and purchases also had to fail safely. A broken generation or delayed store event should never cost a player money or in-game currency.

What We Learned

We learned that the reveal is the moment everyone waits for. It needs to be quick and clear, especially when everyone is talking at once.

We also learned that new packs are a better fit for Gotcha than gameplay advantages. They give groups more reasons to play without making the game unfair.

How We Built It

All implementation details live here so the story above can stay focused on the player experience:

  • Client: Flutter and Dart for iOS and Android, with BLoC, Chopper, and Freezed.
  • Live game: Go and Fiber, Melody WebSockets, Bun, and SQLite, with server-authoritative rooms, phases, timers, and scoring.
  • Services: Firebase Authentication, Analytics, Crashlytics, Cloud Messaging, and notifications.
  • AI: OpenRouter-based structured generation with prompt checks, validation, asynchronous processing, private ownership, and refund safeguards.
  • Monetization: RevenueCat purchases and subscriptions, with backend webhook reconciliation for entitlements and fulfillment.

What's Next

Next comes the public Android release, more curated English and Turkish packs, and better AI generation controls. We will use real player feedback to sharpen onboarding, room flow, pack discovery, and the Premium journey—while keeping the bluff, vote, and reveal at the center of every game night.

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Updates

posted an update —

On August 7, 2026, Gotcha: Bluff Party Trivia version 0.0.5 became publicly available on iOS. Download it from the App Store. Android is running in closed beta while we prepare the public Play Store release.

This release includes online rooms, Quick Play with bots, the full bluff–vote–reveal match, bilingual curated content, and private AI Pack Creation. It also brings the game economy into the product: players earn Gold to open curated packs, use Diamonds for AI creation or conversion, and can choose Gotcha Premium for the curated library. Only the host needs access to bring a selected pack into the room.

RevenueCat manages three parts of that system: consumable diamond packs, a non-consumable starter bundle, and monthly or annual Premium subscriptions. Purchases add content and replayability, never extra points, easier questions, longer timers, or stronger votes.

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posted an update —

Any topic can now become a Gotcha pack

The AI Deck Workshop is now part of the playable app. Type a theme, choose English or Turkish, and Gotcha prepares a private pack with 30 questions. Each one contains an answer plus three plausible alternatives, giving players enough material to invent their own bluffs instead of turning the round into a standard multiple-choice quiz.

The workshop is built around real game-night behavior. A player can request 90s cartoons, Turkish football, a niche fandom, or an inside joke, then leave the screen while the pack is prepared. Gotcha sends a notification when it is ready, and the finished pack remains private to its creator.

We also designed the unhappy path: requests are checked before charging, unfinished generations do not become broken packs, and a timed-out attempt returns its cost. That makes experimentation feel safe—and gives every friend group a way to bring its own world into the game.

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posted an update —

The bluff-to-reveal loop is alive

Gotcha now carries a group through an entire online match: open a room, share the code, write a lie, vote, discover the truth, and chase the top spot on the podium.

The important part is not only that the phases work—it is that every player sees the same suspenseful moment together. Live timers, player status, shuffled answers, scoring, reconnects, and host changes stay synchronized across the room. When a full group is not available, Quick Play adds bots so anyone can experience the complete loop from the first question to the final winner.

We have also added the details that make the match feel like a party instead of a form: punchy transitions, sound, haptics, reactions, and a reveal that shows exactly who fooled whom. The result is the version of Gotcha we originally pictured: simple to enter, easy to understand, and dangerous for anyone who trusts their friends too quickly.

Gotcha room, bluff, reveal, and winner flow

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