Over the last few weeks we read a year of what working quiz hosts say to each other about their nights: how they score, what they charge, what they hate doing on a Tuesday afternoon, and what they think of apps like ours. Some of it stung. Most of it was useful.
The short version: a lot of good quiz nights run on paper, and the people who run them like it that way. Answer sheets get passed around, teams argue over handwriting, and the host reads the room. Nobody asked us to take that away. What they did describe, over and over, was the work around it: adding up scores in the break, typing every team name, keeping a side spreadsheet of which questions landed, rebuilding slides, cutting music clips in three different tools.
The craft stays yours. We took the adding up.
So we built a set of tools for that work and called it the Paper Night Kit. All of it is live now, and all of it is on the Free plan.
Score by question
Paper rounds now have a "By question" grid: teams down the side, questions across the top. Tick each right answer (arrow keys move, Space ticks), and the round totals add themselves. The bottom row shows how many teams got each question, and every save ends with one line: "Teams got 65% right. Hardest: Q7 (20%)."
Those numbers stay with the question. Library cards now read "Your teams: 62% got it", with how often you have asked it and when. Rounds played on phones count toward the same numbers. If you have ever kept a per-question sheet by hand because you like the data, this is that sheet, filled in for you.
House rules
Almost every host has their own scoring. The grid now knows the common ones:
- Joker: a team doubles one round, once a night. Brainflood remembers who has played theirs.
- List questions: "name the seven dwarfs" scored by how many each team got.
- Set all: a final round worth 2 a question, in one click.
- Playing for prizes: ringers or bar staff can play but not win. Certificates and the results poster skip them, and only you see the flag.
- +N to every other team: a quiet penalty that does not make anyone's score go down.
Tiebreaks and estimation rounds
"Closest number" is a panel in the live console. Type the real answer and each team's guess, tick "without going over" if that is your rule, and Brainflood ranks them, shares places on a tie, awards points to the winner or down a ladder, and can put the result on the TV.
Team check-in
The one phone job on a paper night. Print the check-in poster, a captain scans it, types the team name, and the team lands on your roster. Regulars see their name from the last ten weeks as a suggestion, with a "6 weeks in a row" streak. No app and no account. If your room has no phones out, type the names yourself like always.
The TV
Save a round's marks and the standings can go straight to the TV. You can turn that off, show ranks without points, or hold it all for a last-to-first reveal. And any TV in the bar can join in: open app.brainflood.com/tv in its browser and type the 5-character code.
Your questions, in and out
Paste rows from Google Sheets or Excel, or upload an .xlsx or CSV file, and check the preview before anything is saved. A round pasted from a Doc works too. The library remembers when and at which venue you last asked each question, warns you about repeats inside eight weeks, and fill-ins from the bank lean toward questions your regulars have not heard. Questions can carry private notes, a source link, an evergreen flag and an author credit. If one of our library questions is wrong, there is a Report button on the card and in the live console.
And any game exports to PowerPoint, from the print pack or the Print Center. A slide per question, answers after each round or each question, speaker notes included. Your show is never stuck here.
Music clips
Upload a song, drag the start and end handles on its waveform, add a fade, and preview exactly what the room will hear. The TV now plays a clip from your start for your length (it used to start every song at 0:00, which was a real bug in front of real rooms). You can download a whole round as one WAV file to play from your own laptop, and the printed music answer sheets have Artist and Title boxes.
The print pack
One ZIP still holds the night: answer sheets for every round, the scorecard, the answer key, the join and check-in posters, a run-of-show, and now picture handouts for picture rounds. Certificates and a results poster are one more click.
One more switch
Plenty of hosts want nothing to do with AI. That is a fair position, so Settings now has a No AI switch. Turn it on and every AI feature leaves your screens, and Brainflood stops running AI work for your account. Nothing in the Paper Night Kit needs it.
What is not done yet
- Get rates split by venue, and a page for a night's or a season's difficulty.
- A results email to teams after the night.
- A number question type that phones can answer, scored by closeness.
If you run a paper night and something here is wrong for how you work, tell us. That is how most of this list got made. The Platform News thread in the forum is the place, or support@brainflood.com.
- The Brainflood Devs
Bring this week's rounds
Paste in a round, print the pack, and mark it in the grid. Free plan, no card. See the whole kit.
Start freeBrainflood is still new. Every share helps us reach more hosts, KJs, and venues. Thanks for the boost.