PULTEVENT
True or false party game: 7 ways to split a room in two
A hotel function room in Manchester, the second Friday of December, ninety people from a logistics firm and a buffet that has just been cleared. I put a sentence on the projector: "A group of flamingos is called a flamboyance." Then I say, "True, walk to the windows. False, walk to the bar." Eighty-odd people shuffle to the windows. The finance director walks to the bar on his own, turns round, and folds his arms like a man who has never been wrong in his life.
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He was wrong, as it happens. But that walk, one man crossing an empty dance floor while his whole department watches, is the reason I open so many evenings with true or false. It needs no explanation, no teams, no phones and no warm-up. People understand it in four seconds, and they commit to an answer with their feet, which is far funnier than writing it on a card.
In PULTEVENT the game is a ready-made section. You run it from a laptop browser, the fact goes up on the projector or TV, and the correct answer sits on your side of the screen (or on your own phone, if you are running the evening from the middle of the room). Guests don't scan anything. They shout, stand, point or walk. That makes it one of the few formats I trust in a basement venue with no signal, as long as the laptop itself has a connection.
7 ways to run true or false, from a seated dinner to a dance floor
1 Walk to your side
True to the windows, false to the bar (or any two landmarks in the room). The fact goes up, people move, you count to five and reveal. The wrong side gets a round of mock sympathy.
How to run it. Pick sides that are far enough apart to make people walk, but not so far that the older guests give up halfway. Clear chairs off the route first.
It gets a seated room on its feet without anyone having to dance yet, which is exactly what you need before the first song.
2 Hands up, table by table
For a banquet where nobody is getting up: hands up for true, hands down for false. You call the table numbers and comment on the ones that split down the middle.
How to run it. Name the tables out loud as you go. "Table four, all true, confident. Table nine, one hand up, and it's the bride's uncle."
It fills the gap while the kitchen plates the next course and keeps the room with you rather than on their phones.
3 The guest of honor round
Facts about one person: the birthday girl, the retiring headteacher, the groom. "Margaret once hitchhiked to Cornwall." "Dave has never seen the sea." The family knows, the colleagues guess.
How to run it. Collect facts from two different sources, say a sister and a best friend, so no single person in the room knows every answer.
The guest of honor gets to tell the story behind each fact, and those stories are what the family repeats at the next Christmas dinner.
4 Company facts for a work party
The year the firm was founded, the first product it ever sold, how many coffee machines the Leeds office has. Half the facts true, half invented by you and signed off by HR.
How to run it. Ask the office manager for five facts that surprise even long-serving staff. Write five believable fakes to go with them.
New starters and twenty-year veterans play on equal terms, and the veterans are usually the ones who get caught out.
5 Teams with a running score
Split the room into teams, let each table agree an answer, and add points on the team scoreboard after every reveal. The totals carry over into the rest of the evening.
How to run it. Give each table ten seconds to agree before you ask for the answer. Arguments inside a team are half the fun, so let them run.
It turns a light warm-up into the first round of a competition that ends with an awards ceremony at the end of the night.
6 Phone version for a quiet crowd
In the quiz builder, write each fact as a question with two options, true and false. Guests scan the QR code and answer on their phones, and the scores add up by themselves.
How to run it. Use this where people are shy of shouting, like a conference or a team meeting. Remember the phones need internet.
Everyone answers privately, so nobody is embarrassed, and you still get a leaderboard at the end.
7 Last one standing
Everyone starts on their feet. Anyone on the wrong side of a fact sits down. Keep going until three people are left, then play a tie-breaker fact for the prize.
How to run it. Keep a couple of hard facts in reserve for the final. If the last three all get it right, you need another one ready.
The seated guests stop playing but keep watching, and they cheer harder for the survivors than the survivors do for themselves.
Open it and play
The section comes with facts already inside. You can run a round tonight without writing a single line.
Guests need nothing
No QR code, no app. They answer by voice, by show of hands or by walking to one side of the room.
The answer stays with you
The room sees only the fact until you reveal it. You see the right answer on your console or on your phone.
Your own facts in bulk
Type facts one by one, or fill a spreadsheet template and load the whole list at once.
What happens on the screen
You open the section, pick a fact, and it appears on the big screen in large type, big enough to read from the back tables. The room debates. When you are ready, you reveal the answer, and the screen shows true or false with a short explanation if you wrote one.
Your console holds the list, so you choose the order as you go. If the room is flagging, you skip ahead to a funnier one. If a fact dies, you move on without anyone knowing it was on the list.
The console also opens on your phone through a QR code in the app header. I use that a lot for this game. I stand among the tables, read the fact out, and see the answer in my hand while the room argues around me.
What makes a good fact
A good true fact sounds false. A good false fact sounds true. That's the whole craft. "Octopuses have three hearts" works because it sounds made up. "The Great Wall of China is visible from space with the naked eye" works because half the room has heard it as a fact since school.
Avoid facts with numbers that are almost right. "There are 206 bones in the adult body" against "there are 208" is not a debate, it's a memory test, and the room goes quiet instead of loud.
Keep an eye on who is in the room. For a family birthday, animals, food and history are safe. For a work party, the company facts land best. For a hen do or a stag do, the facts about the guest of honor are the round they will talk about, so spend your prep time there.
Loading your own list
The built-in facts give you something to run with tonight, but the section is at its best with your own. There's a button for your own questions: edit a fact, change its answer, delete ones that don't suit the room, add new ones.
For a longer list, download the spreadsheet template, fill in the fact and whether it is true or false, and load the file back (.xlsx, .csv or plain .txt all work). You can also save your set as a file and take it to another laptop, which is handy if two hosts share one bank of facts.
The pacing I use
Eight to ten facts is a warm-up. Fifteen is a round. Past twenty the room starts to drift unless there's a prize at stake.
I start with two easy ones so everybody gets a win, then one the whole room gets wrong, then alternate. Finish on a fact about someone in the room if you can. It gives you a natural handover into a toast, a speech or the first dance.
"Is it true?"
"Walk to the bar and find out."
When there's no signal and half the guests have no smartphone
Because guests answer out loud, this game doesn't care about their phones. That makes it my first choice for a grandparent's ninetieth, a village hall, or a venue in a basement where mobile data dies at the door. The laptop still needs internet, so check the venue Wi-Fi or bring a hotspot.
If you'd rather have scores tallied automatically, switch to the phone version from the quiz builder. Then guests do need a connection on their phones, and it's worth saying so plainly on your pre-event call with the venue.
Trying it before the night
Register for the free 3-day demo (no card needed) and open the section on your own TV. Run ten facts at the kitchen table with whoever is around. After that, the full version is a one-time license with no subscription, and pricing is at pultevent.ru/en.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who has hosted weddings, birthdays and office parties since 2014: over 500 events, best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He made it for his own nights first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run a true or false game at a party
- 1
Decide the format: walking, hands up, teams or phones.
- 2
Open the section and remove any built-in facts that don't suit the room.
- 3
Add eight to twelve facts of your own, including a few about the guest of honor.
- 4
Connect the laptop to the projector or TV and open the stage window on it.
- 5
Explain the rule in one sentence and play two easy facts first.
- 6
Finish on a personal fact and hand over to the next part of the evening.
FAQ
Do guests need phones for true or false?
Are the built-in facts in English?
How many facts should I prepare?
Can I see the answer without the guests seeing it?
Does it work for kids?
Can I keep score between teams?
What does it cost?
See also
Run brighter events — with PULTEVENT
All audience interactions, a second screen and timing in one app. Guests join by QR — internet is needed for you and for them.
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