About Scratcheer
Scratcheer is a guessing game. A photo of a well known person is hidden under foil, you scratch the foil off, and you name the face. The less of the photo you use before you answer, the better your score.
The idea came from a simple observation. Almost anyone can name a famous face when the whole picture is in front of them. Almost nobody can do it from a corner of a jaw and half an eyebrow. The game turns that gap into a number.
The rules, the scoring bands and an explanation of how the blur works are on the main page, under the game.
What is in the game
Most categories are faces: historical figures, legendary athletes, music icons, actors, current athletes and people known from the internet. Two are not. World Flags and Country Shapes ask you to name a country instead, and the three wrong answers there are always close enough to make you look twice.
One picture is chosen for each calendar day and it is the same one for everybody that day. Play on consecutive days and a streak builds up.
Playing in a room full of people
Party mode is the same game for a group sharing one device. Everyone is named at the start, each turn deals a picture nobody else will see, and a screen in between asks you to hand the device on so the next picture only appears once that person is ready. Scores add up and the game ends on a leaderboard.
You can also build a pack from your own photos, which is the version people use for office parties and birthdays. The wrong answers come from the other names in the pack, so a pack of colleagues puts four people from the room on screen every round. Those photos never leave your device. They are not uploaded here or anywhere else.
Where the pictures come from
Photos are picked for how recognisable the person is, not for how flattering the shot is. Where a photo carries a licence that asks for credit, the credit is shown with the result. Copyright in each photo stays with whoever owns it.
The flags are drawn from an open source set released under the MIT licence. The country outlines come from Natural Earth, which puts its map data in the public domain. Both credits appear under the answer along with the licence.
If a photo here is yours, or you are the person in it, and you would rather it was not on the site, send one email and it comes down. There is nothing to argue about. The address is info@scratcheer.com, and the Terms say what to include.
The short descriptions
Every person in the game has a few lines written about them that appear once you answer. Those are written for this site rather than copied from somewhere else. They are there to give a bit of context in a quiz, not to document anyone's life, so please do not treat them as a reference.
How it is paid for
The game is free and there is nothing to buy. It is paid for by advertising, and some result screens may carry links to products or services that earn the site a commission. Anything like that is chosen because it fits the subject, and it never changes which picture comes up or how your score is worked out.
Getting in touch
Bugs, wrong answers, suggestions for who should be added, or anything else: info@scratcheer.com. Replies usually take a few days. Takedown requests are dealt with first.