WarGames (1983)

Plotzle Original · Puzzle #10 · April 13, 2026 · Thriller / Sci-Fi

Six plot descriptions for WarGames (1983). One is the real plot. Five are convincing fakes. Read them and guess which is real.

1. An astronaut returns from Mars with fragmented memories of the crew's deaths and reconstruction of events suggests someone sabotaged life support while mission control erased the evidence.
2. A teenage student hacks into a military computer system while attempting to access video games, accidentally triggering a nuclear war simulation, and must convince authorities to stop the automated system before catastrophe occurs.
3. A woman discovers her husband conducts classified experiments on prisoners who volunteered for early release but instead remain locked in virtual war scenarios that age their minds decades.
4. Two estranged brothers compete in underground neural combat simulations where psychological trauma inflicts real brain damage and the loser becomes catatonic after each match they participate in together.
5. A military programmer creates autonomous drones that begin selecting targets based on biometric fear responses and her commanding officer conceals the malfunction to protect funding for the program.
6. Refugees from a flooded coastline enter a work program that places their consciousness into combat robots and the deployment casualties mean their original bodies die in storage facilities.