The game
A trivia game where your knowledge becomes your rivals' questions.
Steal the Round is an independent project: a team trivia game for one room, played on phones, refereed by a human Host.
The idea
Most trivia games hand you a subject. This one makes you choose, then takes most of your choices away. Each team’s Captain locks three categories. One stays with the team; the other two are dealt to rivals. You spend most of the night on subjects someone else picked for you, and everything you picked is out there working against someone.
A miss is never just a miss. When a team gets a question wrong, passes, or runs out of time, every rival that hasn’t finished its own board can steal it, for the full value. Difficulty climbs through four tiers, from Moderate at 1 point to Extremely Hard at 4, so the question a team drops is usually the one worth the most.
A human Host referees. The Host chooses the questions, rules on every answer, settles challenges, and can pause the room when a phone dies.
What the machine does and what people do
Claude generates candidate questions from the categories the room chose, on the server. Each batch passes quality and duplicate checks that don’t depend on the AI provider. The Host then picks one of four candidates per tier, and can ask for up to three fresh batches when none fit.
AI verification of answers is advice, nothing more. The Host makes every ruling, and a defensible answer that isn’t on the list can be accepted. Automated checks reduce disputes; they don’t guarantee the answer key is right, and the game never pretends otherwise.
Built for a room
Two to six teams, up to twelve players each. Phones are the controllers: no account, no download, join by QR code, shared link, or a six-character code. A TV, projector, or laptop as the Big Screen is recommended but optional; the Host can run everything from a phone. The Host does need a device of their own, because the Host screen shows the answers.
Timing comes from the server. Every deadline is shared and absolute, so a slow phone isn’t penalised and a fast one gets no head start.
Credits
- Music by Andrea Baroni (Cyberleaf Studio), from Retro Future vol. 1 & 2, including the title theme “Chasing Neon Lights”.
- Sound effects from JDSherbert’s Pixel UI SFX Pack.
- Built with Next.js, Supabase, Vercel, and Anthropic Claude.
Ready to steal the round?
Put it on the TV, or host from a phone. Everyone else scans a code.