Why we built the dumbest game in the world
We’re IbiPoint. We build practical things — connectivity products, tools that solve real problems for real customers. And then, on the side, we built a game whose entire rulebook fits in one sentence:
Wait for the vibe. Tap.
That’s it. That’s the game. It’s called Tap or Fault, and we’re genuinely proud of how dumb it is.
It started as a side project we couldn’t put down
The first prototype was almost an accident — a screen, a vibration, a timer. It was built to test something else entirely. Then we caught ourselves playing it. Then we caught ourselves playing it again, at midnight, trying to get under 250 milliseconds, mildly furious at our own thumbs.
At some point it was clear: this thing is far too dumb to keep to ourselves.
In German we call it das dümmste Spiel der Welt — the dumbest game in the world. That’s not self-deprecation. That’s the spec. There’s no tutorial to sit through, no energy system, no daily streak guilt-tripping you back. There’s just you, a vibe that comes when it feels like it, and a number that tells you exactly how fast you are. The number doesn’t negotiate.
Dumb is surprisingly hard to build
Here’s the thing nobody tells you: a game with one mechanic has nowhere to hide. Every millisecond of the haptics, every frame of the animation, every word on every screen gets felt, because there’s nothing else to look at.
So the vibe got tuned until it felt right in your pocket — there’s a setting called “Brutal” for a reason. The wait before the vibe has three levels of meanness, and the meanest one is called Evil, honestly. There’s a mode called Ambush that fires the vibe early if you hold the phone too still, because trust is for other games. When you fail, the screen tells you with a comic-book slam — OOPS!, WHAM!, ZZZ… — because if a game is going to humiliate you, it should at least have style.
And there’s the Hitlist: a worldwide leaderboard. You claim a name, you post your best time, and some stranger on another continent beats it while you sleep. No account. No sign-up. A name and a number.
What it doesn’t do
This part matters to us, so it gets its own section.
Tap or Fault has no ads, no tracking, no analytics, no advertising IDs, and no subscription. Your reaction times live on your phone. The only thing that ever leaves your device is the name and score you choose to put on the Hitlist. There’s a single optional €0.99 purchase that unlocks Endless Mode — once, forever — and that’s the entire business model.
We built it this way because it’s how we want the apps on our own phones to behave. A dumb game should be simple all the way down, including in how it treats you.
It’s out now
Tap or Fault is available for iPhone and Android. The whole thing takes about ten seconds to understand and considerably longer to put down.
The current office record is on the Hitlist under “IbiPoint-T.” We’d say come and beat it, but let’s be honest — you will, and he’ll take it personally.
Get it for iPhone Get it for Android tap or fault →
Tap or Fault is a side project by the IbiPoint team. Questions, bug reports, or Hitlist trash talk: contact@ibipoint.com.