Crosstell: Spot the Liar

Five people were interviewed about the same afternoon. They were interviewed separately, they signed what they said, and four of them were telling the truth.

Crosstell gives you the transcripts.

There is no narrator in this app and nobody tells you what to think. You get the brief, the facts that were established independently of anybody's word, and then everything each of the five said — line by line, numbered, exactly as a typed record sets it out.

Somewhere in there is one sentence that cannot be true.

YOU DO NOT NAME A PERSON
Naming a person is a one-in-five guess and anybody can make it. In Crosstell you put your finger on THE LINE — the actual sentence that breaks. There are twenty-five of them in every matter, so it cannot be guessed, which means the only way through is to read.

A window somebody watched the yard through, that had been boarded since Easter. A bus that does not run on a Sunday. A church clock that struck eleven, when it has chimed only the quarters since 1943. A banknote design that was not issued for another eleven weeks. A dog that barked, two years after it went deaf.

TWO ATTEMPTS, AND EVERY ANSWER IS EXPLAINED
When it is over you get the line quoted back in the words you were reading, why it cannot be true — and, just as important, WHY THE OTHER FOUR HOLD. An app that names a liar and says nothing about the rest is asking you to take it on trust.

STUCK? CLEAR ONE
Strike a speaker off the board and read why they are in the clear. It never costs you an attempt. Two are free every day, and if a video will not load on a second try you get the clearing anyway — a hint you cannot have is worse than no hint at all.

TWENTY ORIGINAL MATTERS
A club takings theft, an allotment arson, a quarry injury, a hit-and-run, a hoax abduction and fifteen more. Five hundred lines of statement in all, and every one of them written to be read rather than skimmed.

BUILT FOR READING
Dark by default, light if you prefer it, four text sizes. Every matter is stored on your phone, so reading needs no connection — the ads are the only part that uses the internet. Nothing is behind a paywall: every matter, every answer and every explanation is free.

NO ACCOUNT, NO SERVER
Crosstell keeps what you have solved, what you tried and your streak on your own phone. There is no sign-in, none of your progress is uploaded, and uninstalling deletes it. The free version is paid for by ads from Google AdMob, which receives device data such as the advertising ID and approximate location in order to serve them — your progress is never shown to it. You can review or change your ad choices from Settings at any time.

Nobody in Crosstell is real and nobody said any of it. The interviews are original fiction written for this app with the help of AI and checked before release. Nothing here is a record of a real investigation or a real statement, and any resemblance to one is accidental.