Brainflood for Players - Find a Game Night Near You

Real screenshots, real game

Your phone is the controller.

Scan the QR on the table, type a name, play. This is the whole onboarding. Teams other tables just made show up while you are still typing.

Joining a Brainflood game: enter a name, pick a team, one Join Game button

1. Scan & type a name

A live trivia question with an answer selected and the Lock Answer button ready

2. Tap your answer, lock it

The reveal: your pick outlined in green, You got it, and the point on the board

3. Green glow. You got it. Talk your trash.

Eyes up

The big screen carries the show.

Your phone is for answering. Everything else happens on the big screen, where the whole table can see it.

Your name pops up when you join. The lobby fills with names as the room scans in.
"5 of 8 answered." The question screen counts the room in, so nobody waits on a mystery.
Read-aloud comes from the TV, not forty phones at once.
New round type? A quick card explains it first. Bluff, wagers, lightning, Brainpardy, bingo, Name That Tune.
Your phone stays awake through the scoring break.

The venue TV before the game: join code and QR, and a roster of player names filling in as the room joins

A trivia question on the venue TV with four answer cards, a phone cue, and a live count of how many players have answered

Same game, zero tech

No phones? Pencils work too.

Some nights just play better on paper. Spotty wifi, a no-phones-at-the-table rule, or a crew that likes the scratch of a pencil while they argue. Every game ships with a print pack: real answer sheets, a scorecard for the wall, and a host answer key, straight off the venue printer.

A printed Brainflood answer sheet for Tuesday Night Trivia, filled out in pencil by team The Regulars

1. Print the pack. Hand out pencils.

The host answer key: every question and answer for the round, marked confidential

2. The host keeps the key. Scribble, argue, hand it in.

The final standings scorecard, filled in by hand: The Regulars on top with 47

3. Standings go up on the wall. Bragging rights are analog.

These are the actual printable sheets from a real game. Mix and match, too: half the room on phones, half on paper, one scoreboard.

The thesis

The game is the excuse.
The friends are the point.

Real venues. Real faces.

Not a streaming game show. You walk into a bar. Twelve other tables are shouting at the same wrong answer. By week three the bartender already knows your drink.

All walks of life.

The office crew. The date-night couple. The empty-nesters. The bookworm. The one regular who's been waiting their whole life for a sports-stats round. Trivia is the only sport where everyone has a chance.

A community that follows you.

One profile. One persistent team. Move cities, change venues, swap nights - your stats, badges, friends, and reputation come with you. The venue might change. The crew doesn't have to.

"Every other option on a Tuesday night asks you to perform or consume.
A game night asks you to compete with your friends, not against strangers."

Find a game

There's a Brainflood night within walking distance of your couch.

Type your zip. See every Brainflood game running this week - bars, breweries, cafés, taprooms. Pick a night. Show up. The host is expecting you.

See recurring weekly nights so you know what Tuesday looks like
Filter the venue directory by night type: game nights, karaoke, tournaments
RSVP so the host knows your party size and saves a table
Follow venues you love - get a notification when they announce a new night

Open the game finder

Map © OpenStreetMap contributors · area lookup data © GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · your location never leaves your browser; only a ZIP-prefix area is checked

Ask for a night

Want trivia or karaoke at your bar? Ask for it.

Your favorite place has no game night, or not on the night you are free. Say so on the Gig Board. Local hosts see where people are asking, and a bar listens when a host walks in with a list of regulars who want the night.

Ask for a night

Free with a Brainflood account. Hosts and bars see how many people asked, never who.

Say what and where

Trivia, karaoke, bingo and the nights that work for you, near your ZIP or at a bar you name.
Neighbors back it

Anyone nearby can add themselves to the same ask with one tap, so the count grows.
Hosts pitch the bar

Hosts in your area see the asks and take them to the owner. Owners can see what locals asked for too.
You hear when it happens

When the bar books the night, we tell you, so you can be there for the first one.

Who shows up

Trivia is the most accidentally inclusive sport there is.

No talent threshold. No equipment. No dress code. Just you, a table, and the feeling you might know the answer. Here's who's already in the room:

💼

The Office Crew

"We needed a reason to actually like each other."

Post-work team bonding without a trust fall in sight. The manager who organized it gets social credit. The intern carries them on the geography round.

🪑

The Returning Regulars

"Tuesday nights are ours."

The pub-trivia version of bowling-league lifers. Same team, same table, same ritual for years. Their phone calendar just says The Local. 7pm.

💞

The Date-Night Duo

"It gives us something to talk about besides ourselves."

Early-relationship couples who need a structured excuse to break awkward silences. Trivia is foreplay disguised as a 60s-rock category.

🎬

The Pop-Culture Encyclopedia

"Finally, a room where every Marvel character matters."

Knows they're the smartest person in the room about specific things. Trivia is the only sport they've ever won. Will die on the hill of who played bass for The White Stripes.

🐺

The Lone Wolf

"I just moved here and I don't know how to meet people."

New to town. Newly divorced. Empty-nester back in the dating world. Showing up alone is socially acceptable at trivia in a way it isn't anywhere else. Brainflood lets them join an open team. And because the game runs on the same phone interface they already game on at home, the scary part of walking in is mostly gone before they get there.

📊

The Sports-Stats Nerd

"I've been waiting my whole life to be useful."

Memorized batting averages since 1987. Knows the sports category is his moment. Anchor specialist on a team where everyone else does pop culture.

🌅

The Empty-Nester

"The kids are gone and we remembered we used to be fun."

Couples or friend groups rediscovering Tuesday nights out. Less interested in drinking, more interested in having something to actually do while they're there.

🎲

"Just Here for the Vibe"

"I don't care if we lose - round three was worth it."

Doesn't care about winning. Cares about the story they'll tell tomorrow. Show this person the Bluff round and they'll never miss a week.

From stranger to regular

"Knew nobody on week one. By month three we had a Discord, a group chat, and a tiebreaker rivalry with the table behind us."

- What happens at every venue, eventually.

Why in person

Going out is easy.
A standing appointment with the version of yourself that's still curious is rarer.

Loneliness doesn't announce itself. It just looks like another Wednesday on the couch. Recurring game nights are the easiest low-stakes way to have a third place. Somewhere you belong without having to earn it every single time.

A game app on your phone

Solo dopamine, immediately forgotten

You play alone. You win alone. Nobody high-fives you.
The venue across town doesn't know you exist.
You'll remember nothing about it in a week.

Brainflood at a real venue

A weekly story you'll retell for months

You need teammates, and you'll remember them.
The whole table erupts when you nail the tiebreaker.
You'll be a regular at a venue within a month.

Generic happy hour

Small talk with no escape hatch

No structure means no excuse to talk to strangers.
Conversation dies and everyone checks their phone.
Nobody's going home with a new friend.

Brainflood night

The game is the conversation

You don't have to be charming - you just have to know things.
The host runs the room. You just have to show up.
Even the lone wolf finds a team within a round.

Sports at a bar

The event is happening to you

If you don't follow the team, you're invisible.
Conversation has to be shouted over crowd noise.
The room doesn't react when you do something.

Brainflood night

You are the event

Your team's name on the leaderboard, projected on the wall.
Hosts call out the funny answers. Yours might be one of them.
The whole room shares one scoreboard - and one beer order, eventually.

Your player profile

A player identity that follows you everywhere.

Walk into any Brainflood venue and your profile, team, lifetime stats, badges, and reputation are already there. Free, forever, no app.

Persistent player profile

Display name, photo, bio, theme. One identity across every venue and every night. Tap your name on a leaderboard and see who you are.

Lifetime stats & skill tier

Total games, win streaks, accuracy by category, average response time. It ranks you Beginner through Expert and shows which categories you should be carrying. Game recaps land in the team chat before you finish your beer, ready to screenshot.

Achievements & badges

Win streaks, perfect rounds, category masteries, debut nights, comeback wins. Each badge unlocked permanently and visible on your profile. Earned, not bought.

Persistent teams across venues

Your team follows you from venue to venue. One roster, one team code, captain sends the invites. Stats stack across every game you play together. Like a bowling league, only smarterer.

Direct messages & group chats

DM the team. DM the host. DM the rival you've been losing to for six weeks. Group conversations for your crew so the strategy doesn't have to live in three different apps.

Daily Challenge & practice by topic

Ten questions, same for everyone, one shot a day and a leaderboard to prove it. Between challenges, run a practice game against a few bots and pick the topic: history, music, science, sports, thirteen to choose from. Three a day on a free account.

Your Brainflood Score

The Bureau files you: a signature, a rank, karma that grows with every reading, tarot and runes and a daily horoscope. Your rank rides along wherever the room sees your name, on the TV roster and at game over, and you can compare files with anyone at your table.

Sign in with a link

No password to remember. Ask for a sign-in link and open it on the phone you are holding. It works once, for 15 minutes, and it verifies your address on the way in. Google sign-in works too.

Community forums

National boards for strategy, music IDs, recap memes, and venue recommendations. Plus a private board for every persistent team - your team's group chat that doesn't get buried under photos of someone's dog.

QR-code instant join. No app.

Walk in. Scan the code on the wall (or just type a 5-character game code). You're playing in seconds. No download. No registration required to play. Sign in if you want stats; skip it if you don't.

Karaoke sign-up & priority passes

Add yourself to the queue. See your position update live. Win a round of trivia between sets and you skip the line. Hybrid trivia/karaoke nights, nobody else has this.

Tournament brackets

When the venue runs a tournament - single-elim, double-elim, round-robin - your team registers, sees the bracket, and tracks every match. Stakes that go beyond Tuesday night.

Sharable game recaps

Every game ends with a recap, written for you, of how the night went, who won what, and which team had the best wrong answer. Image export ready for the group chat.

RSVPs & venue following

RSVP to recurring nights so the host saves a table. Follow your favorite venues and get a ping when they announce a tournament, a karaoke night, or a special theme week.

Rate the games you played

Help other players find the best venues. Rate hosts. Leave a one-line review. Better hosts get better crowds get better hosts. The flywheel that gets your town to where it should be.

The numbers behind your name

Two scores follow you home.

Glory Points rank what you win. BS karma counts how much of the Bureau you've filled in. Here is how each one adds up.

Glory Points

Short games pay a share.

A win in a five-minute side game shouldn't count as much as a full night. Your points for how you played, where you placed and your streak all grow with how long the game ran, up to full value at 45 minutes.

Only teams that actually played count toward the size of the field, so a lobby full of empty teams can't inflate a win.

BS karma

Climb the Bureau.

Karma starts when your BS file opens and keeps growing every day you come back. Six ranks, drawn to scale.

BUREAU TAB

karma, itemized

ONCE

Open your file+100
Quiz depthup to +100
Add your birthday+17
Each new reading type+42
Party Personality+25

EVERY DAY

A fresh reading+7
Each streak day+5
Did it hands-on+3

Karma is public, like a forum score. Your detailed file has its own privacy switch, and your birthday is never shown.

Eight ways to win the night

Pick your weapon.

Brainflood hosts mix and match these mid-night. One bar runs trivia plus karaoke. Another runs Brainpardy into a Bluff round into a Lightning tiebreaker. The sports bar across town does pick'em on NFL Sunday with music bingo at halftime. A wedding reception runs a Brainpardy round, the auto-built photo slideshow, and an open-mic karaoke set after the speeches. Every night is different because every night is an Event, not a single mode.

🧠

Classic Trivia

The OG

Themed rounds. Picture, audio, and music questions mixed in. The kind of night you'll bring your parents to and they'll want to come back.

🎯

Brainpardy

Pick your category, press your luck

A 5×5 grid of categories. Daily Doubles to wager on. A Final round where you bet everything on one question. The format that makes everyone in the room hold their breath.

⚡

Lightning Round

Faster answer, bigger score

Your phone is the buzzer, and the faster you lock in the right answer, the more it scores. You'll find out very fast who in your friend group has the fastest thumbs (and who knows the answer two seconds too late, every time).

🎭

Bluff & Balderdash

Lie convincingly. Vote on the truth.

Submit a fake answer. Try to fool the room. Score points for tricking other tables - and for finding the real answer in the chaos. The round where the funniest team wins.

🎲

Bingo

Four ways to play, none boring

Trivia bingo, music bingo, picture bingo, classic. Pre-mark your guesses, claim winning patterns, sweat the last square. The mode where Grandma absolutely demolishes everyone.

🎤

Karaoke

Sing for your supper. Or skip it.

YouTube-powered, full KJ-grade queue. Win trivia between sets to grab a Priority Pass and skip the line. Vote on contest-mode performances. The hybrid trivia-karaoke night nobody else does.

🏈

Sports Pick'em

Sundays were going to happen anyway

Pick the winners. Lock one game as your Lock of the Night: 2× points if you nail it, and you lose that pick's points if you miss. Live NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and soccer data. Sportsbooks are a tax on hope. Pick'em is for the pride. (And the regional bragging-rights leaderboard.)

🏆

Tournaments

When the stakes go up

Single-elim, double-elim, round-robin. Your team signs up, sees the bracket, and grinds through weeks for the championship. Some venues run city-wide tournaments with prize pools, sponsorships, and the kind of bragging rights that get you a free pint at every other bar in town.

Why a Brainflood night feels different

It plays like a show. Because it is one.

Your phone is the buzzer, the answer pad, the leaderboard, and now the haptic too. Press it, feel it. Win, feel it. The room has neon timers, confetti, and spotlights because game nights are supposed to feel like game nights, not Google Forms.

⚡

Timer that pulses

Amber at 10 seconds. Red at 3. You feel the urgency without counting. Lightning rounds get a faster pulse because Lightning rounds are faster.

📳

Haptic buzzer

Press the buzzer, your phone buzzes back. Win a round, your phone gives you the little victory pulse. Toggle it off if you prefer silence. Respects iOS reduced-motion.

🎉

Confetti when you win

Small neon bursts when your team clinches a streak. Big rain at the end when you take the night. Felt, not just shown.

🔦

Spotlight on your team

When the scores go up, the top team's row pops on the venue display, and a new leader gets a burst of confetti. Everyone looks. That's the point.

🎬

Slideshow + scrolling ticker

Even the "downtime" between rounds isn't downtime. Photo slideshows of the venue's history. A scrolling ticker with drink specials, upcoming nights, and sponsor shoutouts. Stuff to look at while the host queues up the next round.

🎤

Questions read out loud

Your host runs the room, and Auto Assist can read each question, the choices, the answer and the scores aloud on the TV. Nobody misses a question over the noise.

The community

The conversation doesn't stop when you leave the room.

Every Brainflood player gets the forums. National boards, your team's private board, regional venue threads, host AMAs, weekly recap memes, strategy debates, music ID requests at 2am because you can't remember what song was in round four.

Here's the part we're proudest of: the forums and team boards mean you get to know people before you ever share a table. Trade picks with someone for three weeks online, then meet them at a Tuesday game, and it isn't a stranger. It's just Dave. You already know about his dog. The first in-person hello lands like old friends, because by then you basically are.

Public boards: strategy, off-topic, music IDs, venue recs
Private team boards - your crew's HQ, auto-created with the team
@-mentions, reactions, threaded replies, watch lists
Moderated by real humans with automated screening as backup. No algorithm shoving rage in your face

Browse the forums

How do I find a host in Boise?

help & questions

@idahopotatohead · 23 replies · pinned by mod

Lost the tiebreaker AGAIN. What strategy am I missing?

strategy

@quizly_cyrus · 47 replies · 12 reactions

Can someone ID this 80s synth track? Round four, last week, The Local

music IDs

@thedrumbreak · 8 replies · solved

The Mighty Quizzers: who's in for the regional tourney?

team board

@captain_kira · 6 replies · 3 RSVP'd

Hosts: my crew loves the Bluff round, can we have more?

feedback

@vibesonly · 19 replies · 4 hosts replied

A night at Brainflood

Six steps from couch to regular.

01

📍

Find a game on the map

Type your zip. Pick a Tuesday. Tap RSVP - the host sees your party size and saves a table.
02

🚪

Walk in

There's a QR code on the wall, the bar, and probably the bathroom. The host will gesture at it.
03

📱

Scan, pick a team

Phone browser opens. Type a team name (or pick yours from your saved teams). You're in. Total time: 9 seconds.
04

🎮

Play

Questions on the projector. Answers on your phone. Live leaderboard between rounds. Real-time everything.
05

🏅

Climb the leaderboard

Win or lose, your stats update. Streaks tick up. Badges drop. The recap hits the team chat before you finish your beer.
06

🔁

Come back next week

By month two, the bartender knows your drink. By month three, you've got a Discord. By month six, your team is in the regional tournament. This is how it always goes.

Between nights

Tuesday is weekly. Brainflood isn't.

One profile follows you from the bar to the couch and back.

Upcoming nights

Trivia at The Local

Tue 7:00 pm

RSVP'd

Karaoke Night

Thu 8:00 pm

RSVP

Sunday Pick'em

Sun 1:00 pm

RSVP

Open the calendar

Daily Challenge

DAY 23

your longest streak yet

Play today's ten

The forum

K

Round 4 was rigged (affectionately)

Trivia talk

47

M

Best team names, July edition

Community

132

J

Karaoke requests for Thursday

Karaoke corner

29

Start a thread

BS Bureau

347

Brainflood Score

Aura: burnt copper

Do not question it.

Four rooms. One login.

Sign in

One profile. Every bar, every game mode.
Check the calendar

RSVP to Tuesday before your rivals do.
Play the night

Phone in hand, projector on the wall.
Keep the streak

Ten fresh questions drop every midnight.
Argue in the forum

Rematches, recaps, and team-name disputes.
Consult the Bureau

Your Brainflood Score. Do not question it.

Repeat until the bartender knows your order.

FAQ

Questions players actually ask.

Do I need to download an app? +

No. Brainflood is 100% web-based. You scan a QR code (or type a 5-character game code) and your phone's browser opens the game. No App Store. No registrations to play. If you want a profile, stats, and a persistent team, sign up - but it's optional.

I'm bad at trivia. Should I still come? +

Yes, and you're already wrong about being bad at it. Pub trivia spans pop culture, geography, music, sports, history, food, sci-fi, current events. Nobody knows everything. Every team has a category specialist and a complete dead-weight on another. The dead weight on geography is usually a hero on the music round. Show up. (And if it really isn't your thing, half our hosts run karaoke or bingo or sports pick'em on a different night of the week.)

I don't have a team. What do I do? +

Walk in alone. Tell the host. They'll either seat you with an existing team that's looking for a fourth (extremely common) or you'll start your own one-person team and pick up regulars over the next few weeks. Showing up alone is socially acceptable at trivia in a way it isn't at almost any other event. We've designed Brainflood specifically so the lone-wolf walk-in works.

Is it expensive? +

Players pay nothing to Brainflood. Ever. The platform is free to play - your account, your stats, your team, your forums, all of it. The only money you spend on a Brainflood night is the venue's pricing on the food and drinks you choose to order. Most venues run trivia free; some venues with bigger prize pools may charge a few bucks per team. That's the venue's call, not ours.

What if my town doesn't have Brainflood yet? +

Three things: (1) Tell us - we'll let you know as soon as a host launches in your area. (2) Tell your favorite venue's GM that they should run a Brainflood night. We'll back them up. (3) If you've ever thought about hosting yourself - this is the entire other half of our pitch. See the host side.

Can I play on my own, without going to a bar? +

Yes. Daily Practice at app.brainflood.com/practice is solo practice trivia against a few bots - any logged-in user can play any time, and you can pick the topic. There's a shared Daily Challenge each day (everyone gets the same questions), a leaderboard, and up to three free solo games a day on the free plan. It's a good way to warm up your trivia brain before a real night, or just keep the streak going between Tuesdays.

Can I bring my kids? +

Depends on the venue, not on us. Bars typically restrict to 21+ after a certain hour; breweries, cafés, and family restaurants often run all-ages early-evening trivia and bingo nights. Each venue listing on the game finder shows the age policy and start time so you can plan a family game night with full information.

Karaoke - what's that about? +

Brainflood ships a full KJ-grade karaoke system. Some venues run dedicated karaoke nights. Some run a hybrid where you do a round of trivia, then someone sings, then more trivia, and winners get priority passes that bump them up the singer queue. It's the most chaotic-fun format we've seen and pretty much nobody else offers it.

How do I find a game near me? +

Sign up at app.brainflood.com. Type your zip. The map shows every Brainflood night running this week. Pick one. Show up. RSVP if you want a saved table. Done.

Wait, my phone is going to vibrate during games? +

Only if you want it to. Brainflood uses haptics for the buzzer press, the correct-answer confirmation, and the team-win celebration. Toggle it off in your profile if you'd rather a silent phone. iOS reduced-motion is respected automatically. The point is the buzzer should feel like a buzzer, not like tapping a hyperlink.

What do I do between rounds? +

Look at the big screen. Hosts run a slideshow of the venue's photos or sponsor shoutouts. The bottom ticker scrolls drink specials and upcoming nights. If the venue runs polls, you'll vote on which Bluff answer was funniest, what next week's theme should be, who's MVP of the night. The downtime isn't downtime, in other words. (And finish your beer. The recap arrives in team chat before you do.)

Plot twist

Loved the host last night? Maybe you are the host.

The other half of Brainflood is for the people who want to run the night. Real income, flexible hours, the platform does the prep and the paperwork, you keep 100% of what you earn. If "I could absolutely do better than this host" has crossed your mind, it has crossed others' too.

See the host side

Find a game tonight.
Or this weekend.
Or every Tuesday from now on.

Free to play, free to sign up, free forever. The bar will charge you for the beer.

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