How to play Girgit
4 to 10 playersA phone each, everyone in the same room
Also called The Chameleon · Word imposter · Undercover word game · Spy word game
The game
Girgit is a social deduction game for a table of four to ten. Everyone sees the same grid of sixteen words and the same theme. Everyone can also see which one of those words is the secret — except one player, the Girgit, who knows only that they are the Girgit.
Then everyone types a single clue about the secret word. All the clues appear at once. The innocent players are trying to prove they know the word without spelling it out; the Girgit is trying to sound like they know it. Then you argue, and you vote.
If you have played The Chameleon, you already know this game. Girgit (गिरगिट) is Hindi for chameleon — and it carries the idiom too: girgit ki tarah rang badalna, to change colours, to be two-faced.
The rules
- 1
Everyone joins one room
One person taps Start a room and reads out the four-letter code. Everyone else types it in on their own phone. Nothing is installed and nobody makes an account — your phone is your seat, and if you close the app and come back, you are still in it.
- 2
Look at your word, carefully
Hold the button to see the secret word. It shows only while your finger is down, and it never lights up a square on the grid — a glowing square is readable from across a table by its position alone, without anybody reading a thing. If you are the Girgit, holding the button tells you so, in exactly the same place on screen, so nobody learns anything by watching you.
- 3
One clue each, revealed together
Type one or two words. Nobody sees anything until the last clue is in, and then they all appear at once with names attached. That simultaneous reveal is the one place this beats the cardboard version: around a table the last person to speak has everybody else's clues for cover, and the Chameleon desperately wants to go last. Here there is no last.
- 4
Argue. Out loud
This is the game, and the app deliberately does nothing during it. No timer, no chat, no prompts — just the grid and the clues sitting there while you accuse each other. A clue that is too vague is suspicious. A clue that is too precise is suspicious. So is agreeing with everyone too quickly.
- 5
Call the vote
Anybody can call it — you do not need to be the host. Everyone taps a name, nobody sees the votes until they are all in, and then every vote is shown with who cast it. A tie sends you back to arguing, which is exactly what would happen at a table anyway.
- 6
The escape
If the table picks the Girgit, it is not over. They get one guess at the secret word. Guess right and they walk away with a point anyway. This is what stops an accused player going quiet — there is always something left to play for.
Ways to play it
Scoring
Girgit not caught: two points to them. Caught but guesses the word: one point. Caught and guesses wrong: a point to everyone else. There is no target score and no winner — the session runs until people stop, which is how party games actually end.
Someone has to leave
Locking your phone does not lose your seat: you show as away and the round waits. Leaving properly takes effect at the end of the round rather than mid-hand. And if somebody genuinely walks off while holding the secret, the host can abort the round from the room menu — nobody scores and you deal again.
Four players or ten
Four works and is sharp — with fewer clues each one carries more weight. Around seven or eight is the sweet spot. Ten is the ceiling, because sixteen words and ten clues is about as much as anyone can hold in their head.
Questions people ask
- Does everyone need their own phone?
- Yes. Each player has to see their own secret without anyone else seeing it, so passing one phone around does not work here.
- Can we play it over a video call?
- It works, but it is not what it is for. The game is built for people in the same room — the hesitation and the eye contact are most of it, and there is no voice chat here because we assume you can already hear each other.
- What if my phone dies or I lose signal?
- Your seat, your role and your word are held on the server, not on your phone. Come back and you drop straight into whatever the room is doing. Girgit and Mafia are the parts of this site that genuinely need a connection — everything else works with no signal at all.
- Does the Girgit know they are the Girgit?
- Yes. They see the grid and the theme but not the secret word, so they know they are bluffing from the first second. That is what makes it different from games where the odd one out has no idea.
- Is this The Chameleon?
- It is the same mechanic. The Chameleon is a Big Potato Games title and the name is theirs; Girgit is ours, and if you like one you will like the other. Go buy the box too — it is a good box.
Office Paglu
Unprofessional office wear for corporate mazdoors. Wear the joke to the party you just won.