How to play Katfish
Katfish is an online multiplayer game of bluffing and deduction for 3 to 12 players. Everyone plays a secret character on a fake social network, holds that role through several stages, then everyone votes to work out who was behind who. It runs in the browser, with no account and no install !
Katfish : the game
The game hands you a character you didn't pick. For the whole game, everything you write is published under that character, never under your real name.
You have two goals: stay believable in the role so nobody works out it's you, and spot everyone else through their writing, their reactions and their choices.
Creating or joining a game
The host creates a room, picks a name and a language, then shares the four-letter code or the direct link. Everyone else enters a nickname and joins. You need at least 3 players to start.
The host's settings
- The input timer — 1 min 30 by default, adjustable from 1 to 3 minutes, or off. It covers writing, the group chat, Game Time and voting. When it hits zero, whatever you typed is sent automatically: you never lose your text.
- The number of rounds — from 2 up to the player count minus one. Each round runs through the three stages : the social network, the group chat and Game Time.
- The voting mode — every round (you guess one character at a time), or all at the end (you have to place them all at once).
At any point a majority of players can vote to skip a stage, and the host can send everyone back to the lobby.
Step 1 — Your character
The game offers you a random character. Three options: keep it, roll another one with the "Another" button, or invent your own from scratch.
Careful — this is not the character you'll play. You're preparing it for someone else, and someone else is preparing yours. Two characters can't share a name: if yours is taken, you'll be asked for another.
Step 2 — The portrait
You draw the character's face: it becomes their profile picture for the whole game. Brush, paint bucket, eraser, undo and fourteen colours. Nobody expects a masterpiece — a recognisable, slightly absurd drawing always works better than a careful portrait.
Step 3 — Finding out who you play
Characters are shuffled and handed back out, and you discover the one you'll play: its name and the face someone else drew for it. You may well land on the one you prepared yourself. Keep it secret — the whole game depends on it.
The feed: likes and comments
Everything then appears in a feed, like a real social network. You can like and comment on other people's posts, always in character.
Likes are credited: you can see which character liked what. Who backs whom becomes a clue in itself. Nothing stops you liking your own post — that's a perfectly good bluff.
Stage 2 — The group chat
A group chat opens where everyone talks at once, in character. It's the most revealing moment of the game: writing tics, humour, punctuation and reaction speed give people away far more than any carefully written post.
Bring your character to life without getting caught, and grill the others to push them out of theirs.
Stage 3 — Game Time
A short stage, drawn at random from three:
- Dilemma — two sides, you pick yours.
- Social dilemma — you vote for one of the characters in the game ("who would lie best?").
- Question — a free answer in a few words.
The stage results
Answers are revealed, each credited to its character. Take the time to compare them: this is where you spot the contradictions between what a character wrote earlier and what they just picked.
A private notepad is available throughout the game. You can jot down what you notice about each character and name a suspect. None of it leaves your screen: those notes are never sent to the other players.
Guessing
Depending on the host's setting, voting takes one of two forms.
Voting every round
At the end of each round you're shown a character and you name the real player you think is behind it.
Voting all at the end
No voting during the rounds. Right at the end, you match every character to a player, all at once, and each player can only be picked once.
How you score
- You correctly guess who's behind a character → 1 point for you.
- Someone gets your character wrong → 1 point for you. Hiding well pays as much as guessing well.
Scores stay hidden until the end: there's no way to know mid-game whether you were right.
Points and the reveal
The game ends with the reveal, from last place to first. Each character drops the mask and the real player appears. Every score can be broken down: how many characters you guessed, how many times you slipped through, and who voted what on your character.
The host can then start another game with the same players.
Tips for bluffing well
- Pick a voice, not a caricature. A character you can hold fools people better than an act that runs out of steam by round two.
- Change your writing habits. Your usual emojis, ellipses and typos give you away far more reliably than what you actually say.
- Don't go quiet. A silent character stands out fast, and picks up no clues about anyone else.
- Write things down as you go. A round-one hunch is gone by round three; that's what the notepad is for.
- Distrust the obvious. A character built on someone's nickname is almost never played by that person.