Real or Rigged

Each card shows a headline, blurb, source, byline and dateline. Weigh the tone, the sourcing and the numbers, then call it legit or fabricated. A wrong call reveals the warning signs you missed and your run continues.

• Inspect the source, byline, dateline, tone and any statistics
• Call the card LEGIT (real) or RIGGED (fabricated)
• Correct calls build your streak; misses show the red flags you overlooked
• A real report has no red flags to find, clean sourcing is itself a signal

• Daily: one shared deck of cards each day
• Survival: the run ends the instant you make a wrong call

• Desktop: click LEGIT or RIGGED, or press the Left and Right arrow keys; Enter advances
• Phone & tablet: tap a verdict button or swipe the card left for legit, right for rigged

• Distrust anonymous bylines, suspiciously round statistics and urgency or outrage language
• Do not assume calm writing is trustworthy, a fabricated story can read perfectly clean, so check the sourcing

Real or Rigged trains media literacy by making you spot the markers of fabricated or manipulated content.

• Skills: media literacy, spotting fakes, critical thinking
• Best for: roughly grades 6–12 (ages 11+)
• For parents & teachers: spotting fakes and manipulation.

Weighing a headline, blurb, source, byline and dateline to call a story legitimate or fabricated is fact-checking reduced to its signals.

Revealing the tell after a wrong call is the original feedback.

Those five fields are where fabrication usually shows. A missing byline, a dateline that does not match the events, or numbers with no source are structural tells that do not require knowing the subject — which is what makes them teachable.

Real or Rigged is an original free browser game that trains media literacy by making you spot the markers of fabricated news, turning fact-checking into a fast streak-building challenge.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.