Guess Who Rules

How Guess Who works

Guess Who is a two-player deduction game built around one simple idea: discover your opponent’s mystery character before they discover yours.

Each player secretly receives one character and uses a board containing the full cast of faces. By asking yes or no questions, you gradually eliminate characters until you think you know who your opponent has chosen.

Setting up the game

Before starting, both players need their own gameboard.

1. Choose a gameboard
   One player uses the blue board and the other uses the red board.

2. Open every character door
   Tip the board away from you so that all of the character faces are standing upright.

3. Shuffle the mystery cards
   Mix the mystery character deck thoroughly.

4. Choose one mystery character each
   Each player takes the top card and places it in the mystery card slot on their board.

5. Keep the character hidden
   Your mystery card should face you so that your opponent cannot see who you have.

6. Put the remaining cards aside
   They are not needed again until the next game.

Your mystery character is now the person your opponent is trying to identify.

How to play Guess Who

The youngest player goes first. Players then alternate turns, asking one question at a time.

Ask a yes or no question

On your turn, ask a question about your opponent’s mystery character that can be answered with either yes or no.

For example:

Is your character wearing glasses?

Your opponent must answer honestly.

You can ask about visible characteristics such as hair colour, eye colour, facial hair, accessories and facial features.

Eliminate characters

After hearing the answer, flip down every character who can no longer be the mystery person.

If you ask whether the character wears glasses and your opponent answers yes, you can flip down every character without glasses.

If the answer is no, you instead eliminate everyone who does wear glasses.

Your turn then ends and your opponent asks their next question.

Guessing the mystery character

You do not have to keep asking questions until only one character remains.

Once you believe you know the answer, you can make a final guess.

However, the official rules contain an important restriction:

A character guess replaces your normal question for that turn.

You cannot ask a question and then make a guess immediately afterwards.

For example, instead of asking another yes or no question, you might say:

Is your mystery character Sam?

If you are correct, you win the game.

If your guess is wrong, you immediately lose and your opponent wins.

This makes the timing of your final guess important. Guessing early can win the game before your opponent gets another turn, but an incorrect guess ends the game instantly.

Questions you can ask in Guess Who

Good questions usually divide the remaining characters into reasonably large groups rather than identifying one small detail at a time.

Useful characteristics can include:

• Hair: Does your character have dark hair?
• Glasses: Is your character wearing glasses?
• Facial hair: Does your character have a beard or moustache?
• Accessories: Is your character wearing a hat?
• Eyes: Does your character have a particular eye colour?
• Facial features: Does your character have a large nose or small mouth?

The exact features available depend on the characters included in your edition of Guess Who.

A simple example round

Imagine that you still have 12 possible characters standing.

You ask:

Is your character wearing glasses?

Your opponent answers no, allowing you to eliminate all characters wearing glasses.

On your next turn you ask:

Does your character have dark hair?

Again, you use the answer to remove more faces.

After several questions, perhaps only two characters remain. You must then decide whether to ask another question or use your next turn to make a final guess.

That cycle of question, answer and elimination continues until somebody correctly identifies the mystery character or makes an incorrect guess.

How to ask better questions

Guess Who rewards questions that eliminate as many possibilities as possible.

• Look at all remaining characters: Choose a feature shared by roughly half of them whenever possible.
• Avoid overly specific questions early: Asking about a feature found on only one or two characters may reveal very little if the answer is no.
• Use previous answers together: Each answer should narrow the possibilities left from earlier questions.
• Check before flipping a face down: Accidentally eliminating the real character can make the rest of the game very difficult.
• Keep track of what you already know: Do not waste a turn asking something that an earlier answer has already established.

The official rule sheet specifically encourages players to study differences such as hair and eye colour, noses, mouths, facial hair and accessories when deciding what to ask.

Optional challenge rule

For a slightly harder game, the official rules suggest one additional restriction:

Do not ask whether the mystery character is male or female until your third turn.

This forces players to begin with other characteristics and can make the deduction process more interesting.

It is presented as an added challenge rather than a requirement for every game.

How do you win Guess Who?

The first player to correctly identify the opponent’s mystery character wins.

There are therefore two ways a game can end:

There is no second attempt after an incorrect final guess.

Playing a Guess Who Championship Series

If one game feels too short, the official rules include a Championship Series.

Each gameboard has a scorekeeper that can be used to track victories.

Every time you win a game, move your scorekeeper forward by one point.

The first player to win five games becomes the Guess Who champion.

This format reduces the importance of a lucky single game and gives both players several chances to adjust their questioning strategy.

Guess Who rules – quick summary