Lightning Rules - Brainflood

What Lightning is

Lightning is a speed round played on phones. A question appears, everyone answers at the same time, and the server scores each answer the moment it lands, on whether it is right and how fast it came in.

It runs on true/false and multiple-choice questions only, since those are the ones the system can grade the moment you tap.

How a round plays out

When the host reaches the Lightning round, every phone switches to the Lightning screen (if the host set Qualifying Teams, only the top teams play and the rest watch). The host presses Start and the first question appears on every phone and the TV at once. Tap your answer before the timer runs out. A right answer in the first 1 second scores 100 points. After that it slides evenly down to 50 at the end of the window, so a right answer always beats a wrong one. A wrong answer scores nothing, or loses points if the host set a penalty. You get one answer per question. Your phone says Locked in, and you find out how you did when the question closes, so nobody at your table can read the answer off your screen.

String 3 correct answers together and you are on a hot streak: that answer and every right one after it is worth 1.5x until you miss. A wrong answer or a question you let pass ends the streak. The final question of the round is worth 2x if you get it right, on top of any streak.

When the host ends the round, the top three players each earn a bonus for their team. You need more than zero points to place. Players tied on points share the places they cover and split those bonuses evenly. Those bonuses are what Lightning adds to the game's team scores.

Variants

Parallel (default)

Everyone answers every question at once, and speed sets the points.

Single buzzer

Phones show a buzz button. The first player in answers alone.

Only the player who wins the buzz sees the question and the answer buttons. Everyone else sees who buzzed in.

The winner has 7 seconds to answer. A wrong answer, or no answer in time, locks that player out and reopens the buzzer for the rest. The question closes when someone gets it right, everyone has missed, or time runs out. Points still come from how fast the answer lands after the question went up.

Scoring

1st place 50 pts 2nd place 25 pts 3rd place 10 pts

Host setup options

Option	What it controls
Question types Default: both on	Lightning only uses true/false and multiple-choice questions. Tick either or both; at least one must stay on. These are the only types the server can score the moment a player taps, so short-answer is not allowed. When the round starts, a short-answer question or one of a type you unticked drops out, and the round is topped back up to its size from the question bank.
Answer window Default: 15s	How long players have to lock in each answer. Pick it in the Game Designer and the round starts with it. You can change it between questions on the live console. Points slide from 100 to 50 across the window, so a short window raises the stakes and a long one is gentler. The players' rules card always shows the window the round is using. See how it works, in pictures →
Wrong-answer penalty Default: 0 (none)	Points docked for a wrong tap. A penalty discourages blind guessing. It docks the player's Lightning total, which never drops below zero.
Auto-advance Default: 5s	Seconds before the next question fires on its own. The Game Designer's Auto-Advance switch is on by default, which starts the round at 5 seconds. Switch it off to start in manual. Off means you press Next Question yourself. Otherwise the next question fires that many seconds after everyone answers or time runs out. Change it any time on the live console.
Answer style Default: parallel	Whether everyone answers at once or one player buzzes in. Parallel: every phone answers at the same time and speed sets the points. Single buzzer: phones show a buzz button first. The first player in sees the question and answers alone, and a wrong answer reopens the buzzer for everyone else. Switch it on the live console.
Who participates Default: all	Everyone plays, or only the top teams. All Players: every phone in the room plays, however big the room. Qualifying Teams: only the top teams by game score when the round starts play, as many as the Participant Count slider says. Teams tied at the cutoff all get in. Everyone else sees a sitting-out note on their phone and watches the TV.
Team bonuses (1st / 2nd / 3rd) Default: 50 / 25 / 10	Bonus points for the teams of the top three players at the end of the round. Set each place from 0 to 200 in the Game Designer. These bonuses are the Lightning points that go into the game's team scores.

In pictures

Lightning, question to bonuses

Question up

It shows on every phone at the same time.

Tap fast

Pick your answer before the timer runs out.

Speed points

A right answer scores 50 to 100. Faster scores more.

Streaks

3 right in a row pays 1.5x.

Team bonus

The top three players win points for their teams.

A right answer in the first 1 second scores 100. After that the points slide evenly down to 50 at the end of the answer window.

A wrong answer costs whatever penalty you set (the default is none), and every Lightning total is floored at zero.

The final question pays 2x, so a round is never out of reach on the last screen.

🏆 Glory Points

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

Lightning is a round inside a trivia game, so it doesn't pay GP on its own. Its team bonuses roll 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

Speed pays, but only when you're right. A slow right answer still scores 50, and a fast wrong one scores nothing. Read first, then commit.

Protect a streak. Once you're on a roll your answers are worth more, so don't throw it away on a wild guess.

Save something for the last question. It's worth 2x, so one fast right answer there can jump you up the board.

Fairness & the fine print

Every answer is timed on the server from the moment the question went up, so a slow phone cannot fudge it and there's no host judgment call.

An answer that arrives after the window (plus a small allowance for a slow network) is refused, and so is an answer to a question that has already moved on.

Your Lightning points rank the players. The end-of-round bonuses go to the teams of the top three, so one team can collect more than one bonus. A player on zero points never places, and a tie splits the tied places' bonuses evenly (rounded down), so a tie never pays more than the places are worth.

Penalties can never take you negative: your Lightning total is floored at zero no matter how many wrong taps you rack up.

Lightning is phone-only. There's no paper version, because scoring depends on measuring each answer's response time.

The TV shows the question, the timer and how many players have answered, then each question's results. Every third question it shows the Lightning race: the players' Lightning totals and each team's Lightning points, with the bonus each team would win if the round ended then. It's labelled as the race, not the game score, because only the bonuses go into the game score.

The round waits for every phone in the game, however big the room, and counts a phone that joins mid-round. Results show when the last one answers or time runs out.

The host can skip a question (it closes, everyone sees the answer and the next one goes up; answers already in keep their points), reset one to ask it again, or add or take away points from a player by hand.

When the round ends, the host console shows a Next round button, or Finish game on the last round.

In a solo practice game, Lightning plays as a fast standard round: every right answer scores, and the fastest right answers earn a speed bonus.