Brainpardy Rules - Brainflood

What Brainpardy is

Brainpardy is a board of categories across the top and point values down each column, easiest clues worth the least and hardest worth the most. Teams take turns picking a cell, and everyone races to buzz in and answer.

Clue values run from 200 at the top of a column up to 1000 at the bottom on a full board. A correct answer adds the cell's value to your team and hands you control of the next pick. A wrong answer subtracts that value and reopens the buzzers for everyone else.

How a round plays out

A random team gets the first pick. If the board was built before any team joined, the first team to pick takes control. The team in control picks a category and a point value, on a phone or through the host.

The clue appears on the TV and every phone. A few seconds later the buzzers open for every team at once. The first team to buzz types its answer. Get it right and you bank the points and take control. Get it wrong and you lose the points, and the buzzers reopen so another team can steal it. Each team gets one try per clue.

Play continues until the board is cleared. If the host turned on Final Brainpardy, one last clue caps the game with a wager from every team.

Host setup options

Option	What it controls
Categories Default: 5 (range 3 to 5)	How many category columns the board has. More categories means a wider board and a longer round. Each column comes from a question category or a Cellar pack, and you can rename any column.
Rows per category Default: 5 (range 3 to 5)	How many clues sit under each category, easiest at the top. Sets the point ladder, from 200 at the top down to the hardest clue at the bottom. Easy clues go on the cheap rows and hard clues on the expensive ones.
Daily Doubles Default: 1 (range 0 to 3)	Hidden wager cells scattered on the board. They are placed at random when the board launches, never on the cheapest row. The team that picks one wagers before it sees the clue, and only that team answers. See how it works, in pictures →
Buzz-in window Default: 15 (range 10 to 60)	How long teams have to buzz in once the buzzers open. The buzzers open 3 seconds after a clue appears, or sooner if you press Open Buzzer Now. If nobody buzzes in time, the clue closes with no points. After a wrong answer the buzzers reopen for the same window. Pick it in the Game Designer or from the chips on the live console.
Time to answer Default: 20 (range 10 to 60)	How long the team that buzzes in has to send its answer. A countdown shows on the phones, the TV and your console. When it runs out, whatever the player has typed is sent; with nothing typed, the team is out of time, which counts as a wrong answer, and the other teams can steal. A Daily Double gets 10 seconds more. A team answering out loud or on paper? Press Stop the clock and judge them yourself. Pick it from the chips on the live console.
Grading Default: host	Who decides if a typed answer is right. Host (You judge on the console): you judge every answer. An exact or near-exact match shows a suggestion you can accept with one tap. Suggestions (also on in an Auto Assist game): unclear answers get a suggested verdict too, and nothing counts until you tap Correct or Incorrect. Auto-Grade: clear calls count on their own, and only the close ones wait for you. A suggestion for an unclear answer uses Brain Credits; with none left, the answer simply waits for you.
Final Brainpardy Default: Off	Add a one-clue finale where every team wagers. When the board is cleared, the live console asks for the final category, clue and answer. It offers a hard clue from your bank that you can edit, or you type your own. You open wagers, show the clue, close answers, then mark each team right or wrong, which reveals it on every screen. Go to Final skips any clues left on the board.

In pictures

One Brainpardy clue, pick to steal

Pick a clue

The team in control picks a category and a value.

Buzz in

When the buzzers open, every team can buzz.

Type it

The first team in has 20 seconds to type its answer on a phone.

Win or lose it

Right wins the points and the next pick. Wrong loses them, and others can steal.

Clear the board

Play goes on until every clue is used.

A Daily Double breaks the pattern: only the team that picked the cell may answer, and it wagers before the clue is shown.

If nobody buzzes in before the buzz-in window ends, the clue closes with no points and the same team picks again.

If Final Brainpardy is on, one last shared clue caps the game with a hidden wager from every team, up to its current score.

🏆 Glory Points

Board points decide the Brainpardy round, but they're separate from Glory Points (GP), the season-long score that ranks you across every game mode.

Brainpardy is a round inside a trivia game, so it doesn't pay GP on its own. Your board result rolls into your game score, and GP is awarded once when the whole game finishes. See the Glory Points guide for the full breakdown.

Read the Glory Points guide →

Strategy & tips

Buzz for the clues you actually know. A wrong answer costs you the cell's value, so a wild guess on a high-value clue can swing the board against you.

Daily Doubles are the big movers. Wager small when you're shaky on the category and big when it's your wheelhouse, since only your team can answer it.

Watch the scoreboard before Final Brainpardy. Your wager there can only be as large as your current score, so a strong lead is worth protecting.

Fairness & the fine print

Scoring is per team. A correct answer adds the cell value and a wrong answer subtracts it. Like the TV show, a team's score can drop below zero.

The buzz-in is settled on the server, so the first team to buzz wins the answer cleanly even across a busy room. Only one answer per team counts, so the first teammate to send one speaks for the team.

Daily Doubles never sit on the cheapest row, and the team that lands on one may wager up to the larger of its score or the top value on the board. The wager locks the moment it is sent: one wager per Daily Double, before the clue shows. A right answer wins the wager and a wrong one loses it. Either way, that team keeps the next pick.

In Final Brainpardy each team wagers up to its current score (nothing if it is at zero or below) on a single shared clue. A team that does not wager plays for nothing but still answers. The host then reveals each team's answer and wager one at a time, starting from the lowest score.

Teams playing on paper cannot buzz. The host picks their cell, scores them by hand, and enters their Daily Double and Final wagers and Final answer for them.

All clues are answered by typing, so there are no multiple-choice options on screen. A board uses short-answer questions plus multiple-choice questions that read fine without their options and have an answer of 40 characters or less.

Pack columns: back any column with a Cellar pack and give it your own label. The column draws a fresh easy-to-hard set from the pack each time the board launches, skipping clues you used recently. If the pack cannot fill the column, the designer's saved clues play instead.

A column that is short of clues is topped up from its category or pack at launch. If it still cannot be filled, the board launches anyway with those cells empty. An empty cell shows as used and cannot be picked.

Building a board on the live console: type 3 to 5 category names. Each name is matched to a question category (History, Movies, Food & Drink and so on). A name with no match, or a category that runs short, is filled with mixed questions.

When the round is over, the console shows the standings and a Next round button (Finish game on the last round).

Final Brainpardy (optional format): flip it on to cap the game with a single high-stakes finale after the board is cleared, where every team makes a hidden wager on one shared clue. Leave it off for a faster game that ends when the last cell is answered.

Reloading the host console in the middle of a clue keeps the clue and any answer waiting to be graded.