What is Faceit?
Faceit is a daily portrait identification game that hides a photograph behind a five-by-eight tile grid. You decide which tiles to open with a budget of five reveals and three guesses to name the person. The score starts at 8/8 and drops by one point for each tile opened or wrong guess submitted. The game is part of BrainSnack's browser puzzle collection and uses ninety-eight portraits from photographer David Shankbone's Wikimedia Commons archive.
How to play Faceit
- Open the page to see the tiled portrait, score counter, and input field with no sign-up required.
- Tap any tile to reveal that section of the photo. The line under the grid tracks your five remaining reveals.
- Decide whether to open another tile or submit a guess. Both actions cost one point but are tracked separately.
- Type a name into the "Who is it?" field and press Guess. A green checkmark or red cross appears.
- Win by naming the face correctly, lose by exhausting three guesses, or select "Give up & reveal answer" to end at 0/8.
- Review the result screen for the answer, biography, and photo credit, then share your score as a grid of colored squares.
Why play Faceit?
Faceit rewards deduction over trivia knowledge. You control which facial features to reveal—eye, jawline, or hairline—and decide when partial information is enough to guess. Each round lasts one to two minutes.
The game suits players who enjoy strategic tile selection but presents limitations. The portrait pool contains ninety-eight mostly American public figures from the 2000s, heavy on actors, comedians, and news anchors. If those names fall outside your reference, tile strategy cannot compensate. There is no archive of past days and no second attempt after finishing.
Reading the feedback
The score starts at 8/8. Opening a tile costs one point, as does an incorrect guess. A correct guess costs nothing. Submitted guesses appear below the input as chips: green with a checkmark if correct, red with a cross if incorrect.
Three incorrect guesses end the round with “Out of guesses” and reveal the full photo. A correct guess shows “Nailed it!” Clicking Give up sets the score to 0/8, regardless of how many tiles you opened or guesses you made. The result screen turns your guess history into a row of green and red squares you can share.
Modes
Daily puzzle: One portrait per day, shared by all players, on a five-by-eight grid with five reveals, three guesses, and a score out of eight. The page opens directly to the puzzle with no mode selector, difficulty setting, or archive. Once finished by correct guess, three wrong guesses, or give-up, the browser stores the result. Reloading shows the saved score and a message to return tomorrow.
Tips and strategy
- Five openings cover only a small fraction of forty tiles. The game is won by choosing tiles carefully, not by accumulating reveals.
- A wrong guess and a tile reveal both cost one point. If you half believe a name, try it before spending another reveal on the same suspicion.
- The winning guess is free. Only reveals and wrong guesses reduce the score, so a first-try hit after two reveals finishes at 6/8.
- Focus reveals on identity markers: eyes, hairline, and mouth. With only five tiles available, two well-placed openings outperform five scattered ones.
- The spelling checker forgives one typo in name words of four to eight letters and two in longer words. Words of three letters or fewer must be exact. A word close to another person in the set receives no tolerance.
- Do not use Give up to peek at the answer. It scores 0/8 outright and the browser remembers the finished day, so reloading returns the saved result rather than a fresh board.
Common questions
How many tiles can I open? Five out of forty. The line under the picture counts them down. There is no required order.
How many guesses do I get? Three, shown under the input field. Each wrong guess costs one point.
How does the score work? It starts at 8/8, which is five reveals plus three guesses. Every opened tile costs one point and every wrong name costs one point. The correct name is free. Giving up scores 0/8 regardless of what you spent.
Do I need an account? No. The page opens directly to the puzzle with only a light and dark theme toggle at the top.
Will a misspelled name still count? Usually. The checker allows one typo in name words of four to eight letters and two in longer words. Words of three letters or fewer must be exact. A word close to another person in the photo set loses that tolerance.
Can I play yesterday's face? No. There is no archive. The browser remembers the day you finished, so reloading shows the saved result and a message to come back tomorrow.