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Lamplight is a family worship game built from JW.org publications. The name comes from Psalm 119:105 — “Your word is a lamp to my foot, And a light for my path” — and that is exactly how the family mode plays: every answered question lights one more lamp on the board. One screen (a TV, laptop or tablet) runs the game. Phones are optional: they can be buzzers, private answer pads, a full companion for anyone joining by phone call or Zoom, or the host's remote control.
A normal night takes three decisions on the setup screen: who's playing, the game style (learn together or compete), and what kind of night (random board, tonight's lesson, or a Deep Dive). Everything else has a sensible default. Tap Start and go. For a change of pace, Which game? at the top swaps the board for Feud, Headbands, Clue Chain, Memory match or a Word puzzle — see “The other games”.
Every question shows its answer, the scripture it comes from, and a link that opens that exact lesson on JW.org — pictures included — so the book is always one tap away.
About & why on the setup screen has the goal of the game (and what it is not for), the changelog, privacy and cookie notes, the disclaimer, and a Request a feature form for ideas, bugs and wrong questions. A "What's new" card appears once whenever Lamplight has changed since you last played.
The three kinds of night
Three kinds of night, for every game. Random mixes topics from the books you switch on — the classic night, unchanged: lobby, dice, play. Nothing to go over first. Tonight's lesson is for when family worship is about something in particular: pick the book, the lesson, and how many lessons (just this one, or this one plus the ones before it — the head decides). Every game then draws only from those lessons: the board's columns, the Feud boards, the Headbands and Clue Chain cards, the Memory pairs and the Word puzzles. With Learn first on (it only appears for Tonight's lesson), the TV and every phone first show each lesson with its JW.org link, its video, and every scripture as a link to look up together; the host taps Let's play when you're ready.
Deep Dive is one topic, as far down as you want to go. Choose Quick (three questions, three scriptures, the in-depth ones) or Everything (every question and scripture we have on it). It starts with the story or article and its scriptures, works through the questions, the find-it-fast scriptures and the in-depth questions, then Apply it — how this applies to our family this week, who we could share it with, what each of us will do differently — and closes with the lesson verse. On the other games, Deep Dive means the same one topic: study it first (the learn card with every link), play the game built only from that lesson, and finish with Apply it on the final screen. Not every week needs to be a Deep Dive; when it is, this is the whole evening.
Random board
Preparation: none. Time: 25–40 minutes.
The app picks five categories at random from the books you've switched on. Each category has five questions, easiest at the top and hardest at the bottom. Pick a tile, answer, move on. Twenty-five tiles make a game.
Tonight's lesson
Preparation: read the lesson as a family that week (or right before). Then pick the book and lesson number on the setup screen. Time: 25–40 minutes.
The five columns become that lesson plus the four before it, so the newest story is one column and the rest is review of recent weeks. Plays exactly like a random board. This is the one to use most weeks — the questions land on stories the family just heard.
Deep Dive
Preparation: everyone has a Bible in hand, and the story is ready to open on JW.org. Time: 10–15 minutes. No scoring.
One story, walked through together: read it on JW.org (with the picture) → three quick questions with turns rotating → three "find it fast" scriptures, first to find it reads it aloud → two in-depth questions where you read a scripture first, then talk → the lesson verse and a "what would you do?" situation → done. Good for a busy night, or as the opening of a longer family worship.
Game styles
Family — learn together (default)
Playing alone works too: enter one name. Multiple-choice and true/false answers become tappable — pick one, then Show answer; for everything else there's a box to type your answer (or say it out loud) and check it against the answer yourself. A running "Solo so far" count is the only score.
No points, no buzzers, no wagers. Turns rotate around the family and anyone can help with any question. After the answer, the tile shows the lesson behind the story — the closing scripture the book itself uses — and asks "How could our family use this lesson this week?" Tap Light the lamp and the tile becomes a flame. When all 25 lamps are lit, the family picks one lesson verse to carry into the week — under Psalm 119:130, “The disclosure of your words brings light, Giving understanding to the inexperienced.”
Turn off Talk about each lesson on a rushed night to skip the discussion prompt; the verse still shows.
Points — compete
Jeopardy-style. Tiles are worth $100–$500. Everyone rolls a die to see who picks first; whoever answers correctly picks next. One hidden tile is a Daily Double: the picker wagers before seeing the question. When the board is done, the Final round shows a category, everyone wagers up to their score, then answers in writing (on paper or on their phone) within 30 seconds. If the top scores tie, a sudden-death tie-breaker question decides it.
How people answer: Host picks who got it — the question is read, people call out, and you tap the name of whoever got it. Buzz in — first to press wins the right to answer; you judge Correct or Wrong on the screen. Buzzers can be keyboard keys 1–6 on the TV computer, phones, or the microphone (experimental).
Rules you can toggle: whether a wrong buzz-in loses the points (off by default — a wrong answer just locks that player out of the question), and whether a wrong Daily Double or Final answer loses the wager (on by default).
Players and teams
Play as up to six individual players, or as up to six teams. Type names once; they're remembered. Phones that join by name are added to the player list automatically — even mid-game, starting at $0. In team mode, each phone picks its team after joining, and the first phone on a team to buzz counts for that team.
Why six? The keyboard buzzers are keys 1–6, the scores and dice stay readable on a TV at six, and more than six teams is a hall event, not a living room.
Books and question styles
Switch on any mix of books: Lessons You Can Learn From the Bible (all 103 stories), Enjoy Life Forever! (all 60 lessons — the most in-depth material), The Bible (books of the Bible, where-in-the-Bible, famous verses, people, places and numbers), Sing Out Joyfully (song numbers, titles and each song's scripture), Watch & Answer (the kids' videos — see below), NWT Study Pages (the study Bible's introduction, appendix maps and charts, and glossary — see below), Books of the Bible (book by book — see below), and Was It Designed? (wonders of creation — see below). Boards mix categories from all the books you've turned on.
Question styles, each with its own switch: Ask a question; Complete the sentence (the blank fills in on reveal); Multiple choice (A–D on screen); True or false — and fix it (spot the wrong detail); Who said it?; Name that story (three clues, hardest first, revealed one at a time — anyone can jump in); Which Bible book?; What would you do? (family mode only — a present-day situation that mirrors the story; no right answer, just talk); and In-depth (read a scripture aloud first, then answer a why question — off by default, best for teens and adults).
Watch & Answer — the kids' videos
Switch on Watch & Answer for the younger ones. It holds all the Become Jehovah's Friend videos — Caleb and Sophia — and the ten Learn From Jehovah's Friends shorts, 59 videos in all, most of them one to three minutes. Every column on the board is one video: the first tile you open shows a big Watch on JW.org button, you watch it together on the TV (it opens in a new tab), tap We watched it, and then the questions come from what the family just saw. The rest of that column skips straight to the questions. On phones, everyone sees the Watch button too, so a child on Zoom can watch along.
Use it three ways: a Random board with only Watch & Answer switched on gives you five short videos and 25 easy questions; Tonight's lesson with the video book lets you pick one video and get it plus the four before it; and a Deep Dive on one video is a ten-minute night — watch, three quick questions, a couple of talk-about-it questions with a scripture, and the lesson. The questions were written from the videos' own words, and each answer card shows a one-line lesson with a scripture to read together.
NWT Study Pages — the study Bible's own extras
NWT Study Pages turns the New World Translation's study material into questions: the 20-question Introduction to God's Word (each question and its scriptures), Appendix A (how the Bible came to us, the divine name, the chart of kings and prophets, the events of Jesus' life) and Appendix B (the maps of the patriarchs, the Exodus, the conquest and settlement, David's kingdom, Israel in Jesus' day and the spread of Christianity; the tabernacle, Solomon's temple and the temple mount; the world powers of Daniel; Jesus' last week; money, weights, measures and the Hebrew calendar), plus the glossary of Bible terms. Every answer links to the exact page on JW.org, so the map or chart is one tap away — best on a TV with the page open on a phone or tablet beside it. Ten categories, and every NWT page works as a Tonight's lesson or a Deep Dive.
Books of the Bible — book by book
Books of the Bible covers all 66 books, plus the Bible as a whole — nearly a thousand questions, about fifteen per book. Each book's questions are written from JW.org's own “Introduction to…” video for that book (writer, date, chapters, main events, “Did you know?” facts) and from the book itself, and every answer links to the book in the study Bible. Seven categories follow the Bible's own groupings: the Pentateuch, the historical books, the poetic books, the prophets, the Gospels and Acts, the letters, and Revelation. Pick a book as a Tonight's lesson to get it plus the four before it (a nice way to walk through the Bible in order over the year), or run a Deep Dive on one book: watch its three-to-six-minute introduction on JW.org together, then answer.
Was It Designed? — wonders of creation
Was It Designed? is JW.org's series on the design in living things: 48 short topics — the owl's silent wing, the giraffe's blood pressure, the glass frog that hides its own blood, mother's milk, the dandelion seed. Eighteen of them are two-to-four-minute videos; the rest are one-page articles with a picture. Each topic has seven questions: five facts that climb from easy to hard, one in-depth question that starts with a scripture (Psalm 104:24, Job 12:7-9, Proverbs 30:24, Hebrews 3:4…), and a “talk about it” for family mode. Seven categories group the topics: Flight & Wings, Under the Sea, Grips, Glue & Shells, Bugs, Slugs & Frogs, Life's Systems, Senses, Sound & Color, and Builders & Engineers. On a random board the questions play as “did you know?” trivia and every answer links to the article or video. A Deep Dive on one topic starts by watching the video (or reading the article) together, then three questions, three find-it-fast scriptures about creation, the in-depth question, and the lesson verse. Great for younger kids and for guests who have never opened a Bible.
Questions rotate: nothing repeats until every question in that pool has been asked. Reset questions on the setup screen lets you tick which piles to start over — board questions, or any of the games.
Many questions have a mirror twin that asks the same fact from the other side — “Who said: ‘Lazarus, come out!’?” one time, “Jesus, at the tomb of Lazarus, said just three words. What were they?” the next; “Which Bible book tells the story…?” and then “Which story is found at Genesis 6?”; a song's number one pass, its title the next; “Which verse says…?” and then “What does that verse say?” The two forms count as one question in the rotation, so you see one form the first time through and the other the next.
Phones, guests, Zoom and phone calls
Every game has a room. The moment the setup screen opens on the TV, it shows a four-letter room code, a link and a QR code at the top — and Share invite…, Email and Text buttons to send the invite. Anyone opens the link (or scans the code), types their own name and taps Join. No accounts, no sign-in. Rooms last 12 hours; New code makes a fresh one.
When you tap Start, the TV shows the lobby: the code again, big, and the list of everyone who has joined. Phones can change their name from the Change my name button. You don't have to type names on the setup screen — only for people playing without a phone. When everyone's in, tap Everyone's in — let's play (on the TV or on a Host phone) and the dice decide who goes first.
Who's playing tonight. When you tap Let's play, anyone on the list whose phone is offline, or who never checked in from a phone, gets a quick Playing / Sitting out choice. Someone who joins later shows up as a prompt on the TV and on the host phone: let them in now, at the next round (next board, next card, or after the current question), or not tonight. A phone that loses its connection and comes back is simply back. The ✕ on a name in the room card removes that phone; if they rejoin, you're asked first.
Password. Off by default. Tick Require a password on the room card and type one; phones then have to enter it to join. The lobby shows it next to the code so it's easy to read out.
Names and sign-in. Nobody has to sign in to play. If you do (Sign in / Sign up, top of the page), the names you set under your account — your real name, what the family calls you, and the names you use elsewhere — appear as one-tap chips on the phone join screen, and your wins and points are counted wherever you play. On the setup screen, the ✕ next to a name removes that player; a host phone can remove a phone from the room the same way.
The host controller
To run the game from your phone or tablet while the computer stays on the TV, open the host controller link (on the setup screen, or join with the code and pick Host). Your phone then shows what only the host should see — the Feud answer key, the Headbands card, the Peek button for answers — and the buttons the TV is showing. Tap an answer on your phone and it lights up in its slot on the TV; the TV never shows the key unless you ask it to.
Three roles
Host — the person in control of the whole game. Opens the room, runs setup, and from their phone can do everything the TV can: open tiles, show answers, judge, award, run the Final round. Only one person needs to be Host; a second Host can join at any time (a handy backup if the first one drops off the call).
Round host — the person in charge of each question. The Host (on the TV header or their phone) picks one player as round host, or sets it to rotate so a different player hosts each question. The round host's phone shows a green banner, the question to read aloud, a Peek button to see the answer privately, then Show answer and Correct/Wrong or tap-who-got-it. In points mode the round host sits that question out; in family mode everyone still helps. Change it any time.
Player — everyone else.
What a Player's phone does — the phone is your buzzer, your private wager pad for Daily Double and the Final round, and your answer pad (Final answers, and your Daily Double answer if you're the one who hit it). It also mirrors the whole game: the current question, choices and clues, the answer once it's shown, the lesson verse, and where things stand — so someone joining by phone call can follow every step without seeing the TV.
What the Host's phone does — the phone becomes the remote control. The same buttons the TV is showing appear on the host's phone: pick tiles, show the answer, mark Correct or Wrong, award points, continue the Final round, choose the verse of the week. The host can also type wagers for players who don't have a phone. This lets someone run the whole game from a phone call or a Zoom window while the family watches the shared screen.
Every player's phone has a What do I do? button that explains, in plain words, what's happening right now and what they can do — buzz, wager, type an answer, read aloud, or just watch.
Zoom
Share the game screen in Zoom. Everyone else opens the room link on their phone. In family mode, whoever's turn it is gets a gold "You're the reader" banner, so a remote guest can read their own question aloud.
Phone call (no screen at all)
Everyone joins the room. One person joins as Host and runs the game from their phone; the others join as Players and see every question and answer on theirs. Nobody needs the TV.
Keyboard buzzers still work with no phones at all: keys 1–6 on the computer running the game. A cheap Bluetooth number pad on the coffee table is the zero-fuss option.
Saving your family and resetting
Type a family name and tap Save family to keep your names and every setting on this device. Saved families show as chips — tap one to load it, tap ✕ to remove it. Several families can share one TV, each with their own setup.
Look picks the color theme for the whole game: Navy & copper (the default), Plum & gold, Charcoal & gold, or Green & gold. The lantern logo changes to match, every phone in the room follows the TV, and the choice is saved with your family.
Reset questions opens a list of tick boxes — Board questions, Feud boards, Headbands & Clue Chain cards, Memory match pairs, Word puzzles, Family Choice cards, or Everything — each showing how many have come up. Tick what you want fresh and confirm; the rest keeps its place. Reset everything (tap twice) clears names, settings, the saved game and the rotation — but keeps saved families.
Closing the browser mid-game is fine: the setup screen offers Resume last game next time.
The other games
The Lamplight board is the default, but Which game? at the top of the setup screen has six more. They all use the same players or teams, the same books, the same look, and the same phones and rooms. Family style plays each one cooperatively with no score; Points style keeps score. End game on any of them (tap twice) takes you back to setup, and Resume last game picks up where you left off.
Feud
“Name the 12 apostles.” “Name the ten plagues.” “Name what Jesus did on his last night.” A board of hidden answers, numbered, flips open one at a time as the family calls them out. There are about eighty boards, drawn from the books you switch on — Bible lists, the Lessons stories, Enjoy Life Forever, Caleb & Sophia, the NWT appendix, the books of the Bible, and Was It Designed. Points style: teams (or players) take turns; the team on the board keeps naming answers, 100 each, until three strikes, and then the other side gets one guess to steal the whole bank. Family style: everyone shouts together and lights the whole board. The host key — the list of answers with the buttons that reveal them — lives on the host's phone (or a round host's phone) so the TV doesn't spoil it; with no phones, tap Show key on TV and have the host stand where only they can read it. Every answer counts; the host judges close calls.
Headbands
One person is “it.” A card — a Bible person, place, thing, story or creature — goes on their forehead: if they have a phone in the room, it appears on the phone and they hold it against their forehead facing out; if not, they turn their back to the TV and the card shows there. Everyone else gives clues without saying the name (three hints appear for the helpers, which is what makes it work for kids and guests). Got it or Pass, next card, until the clock runs out. Turns go round the table; choose the seconds and how many turns each under the game options. The card piles rotate the same way questions do, so nothing repeats until the pile runs out.
Clue Chain
One person is the Keeper and gets the answer — a Bible person, place, thing, story or creature — on their phone (or a quick Peek on the TV). Everyone else gets one hint, hardest first: on their phone if they have one, otherwise on the TV with a Read it button. Hint-holders read theirs aloud in order, and after each one the group gets a guess; the Keeper judges. Four points if they get it on the first hint, three on the second, two on the third. The Keeper chooses one hint to hold back — it's only released if the group is stuck, for one point. Everyone's on the same side, so the score is a group score. Optional timer per card; the Keeper role goes round the table.
Memory match
Cards face down. Flip two; a match keeps your turn. The pairs are things worth knowing anyway: a story and where it's found in the Bible, a song number and its title, a verse and its reference, a Bible person and a clue about them. Twelve to twenty-four cards. Three modes: Easy is a trainer — both cards in a pair say the same thing, and every match shows the scripture it's found at; Normal colors the card types (blue stories pair with blue scriptures) and gives a five-second peek before they flip; Hard is just the cards. Calm, and good for the youngest and the oldest at the table.
Word puzzle
A scripture, a Bible phrase, a story title, a person or a song title in blanks. On your turn tap a letter (on the TV or your phone): a hit keeps your turn, a miss passes it. Anyone can try to solve on their turn — a wrong solve passes too. Points style scores 10 per letter and 50 to solve; family style just enjoys it. The reference shows when it's solved.
Family Choice
Mishka Douglas's card deck: 36 family worship activities in six suits — Discover, Practice, Create, Discuss, Play and Wildcard. Everyone's name goes in the Pick Jar; the TV draws one, and that person is the Planner. The Planner draws a card and prepares it for the next family worship — gathers the material, brings the idea — and everyone joins in on the night. Tap Done once a card has been played and it goes to the used pile; when all 36 are gone, Shuffle starts the deck over. No points, no clock. The pile stays on this device (Reset questions can clear it). Want the real thing? Print the deck at lamplightstudy.com/deck/.
Where the questions come from
Every question was written from the JW.org publications named above and points back to its lesson and scripture. Song questions use titles, numbers and the song's scripture only — never lyrics. Pictures are viewed on JW.org itself through the link on each answer, not copied into the game.