KidYouNot! playtest

About KidYouNot!

Your friend has just been accused of blowing their nose on the queen's dress. They have until the timer runs out to explain themselves. You're on the jury, and you're fairly sure they're lying.

Kid You Not! is a courtroom party game for 2 to 10 players, played over voice chat. One player is the judge for the whole match. Everyone else takes a turn in the defendant's chair, accused of something absurd, while the others sit on the jury. The defendant is the only one who knows if they really did it. There's no script: they have to use their imagination and make up a defense on the spot.

How a trial goes

The accusation comes up for everyone. Then the game quietly tells the defendant whether they're guilty.

Then they talk. Once they've had a moment to get going, the judge and the jury can start interrupting with questions. Answers can be given out loud, or drawn on the drawing board when words won't do it.

When the defense is over, everyone votes Guilty or Not Guilty, the judge brings the gavel down, and the next defendant takes the stand.

Lying isn't that easy

A few things happen during every defense to keep the defendant on their toes.

Secret actions

The defendant gets a short list of actions from their action wheel that they have to play during the defense. The trick is to work them into the story they’re improvising, so a sudden backflip or a burst of tears fits what they’re saying and the court can’t tell which actions were required. A defense only gets six actions in total, so you can't bury them under a pile of backflips. While voting, the court tries to pick out which actions were the secret ones. Spot them and you score. Slip them past the court and the defendant scores. Forget to play one and it costs you.

The credibility meter

While the defendant talks, the judge and the jury can press Believe or Doubt as often as they like, and everyone watches the needle swing. It doesn't change anyone's vote. It just lets the defendant see, live, exactly when they lost the room.

Everyone is playing their own game

Points stay hidden until the very end, and they're based on what really happened, not on the verdict. A correct vote scores. A defendant scores for every Not Guilty vote, guilty or not. So the jury is hunting for the truth while every defendant just wants to walk, including the ones who did it.

You might also start the match secretly liking one player and hating another. Nobody else knows unless the host lets them. These are worth zero points. They're there to make it personal.

At the end, the scoreboard shows who was actually guilty, which secret actions each defendant had, and where every single point came from. Then somebody presses Rematch.

Act it out

Hold a button and your character can backflip, cry, pray, shrug, blow a kiss, spin in place or argue. The jury has its own reactions: clapping, disbelief, angry gestures. Mouths move when people talk, so you can always tell who just said that.

Five camera angles let you watch the defendant sweat up close, keep an eye on the jury or look the judge in the eye.

Show up to court looking ridiculous

The avatar creator has bodies, faces, hair, hats, glasses, beards, outfits, gloves and shoes, plus full costumes for when you'd rather stand trial as a pigeon, Santa, a knight, a jester, a dinosaur or a hot dog. Can't decide? Hit Randomize. Your look is saved to Steam Cloud and follows you to any computer.

Run the court your way

The host can change almost everything about a match:

• Accusation category: Simple, Absurd or Outrageous, depending on how much improv your group is up for
• Guilt ratio, anywhere from about one guilty defendant in four up to three in four
• Defense, answer, voting and reading timers
• How many questions the judge and jury get, and how long the defendant talks before questions open
• Voice rules: Chaos lets anyone talk whenever they want. Strict mutes everyone who doesn't have the floor, like a real courtroom
• Choose the judge yourself or let the game pick
• How many friends and enemies each player has, and who gets to know about it

Also in the game

• Voice chat built in, with volume and mute for each player
• Private lobbies for your Steam friends, or public ones you can find in the lobby browser
• Clip recording right from the game, in landscape or vertical 9:16 for TikTok, Reels and Shorts. Trials and verdicts are also marked on Steam's recording timeline
• Xbox and PlayStation controller support
• Windows, macOS and Linux players can share a lobby
• Steam achievements
• Short tips the first few times you do something, and a How to Play page with every rule

You don't have to be good at improv to play. Being accused of pickling a shooting star is a pretty good head start, and your friends will handle the rest.

From the game's Steam page.