How Your Phone Becomes a Game Controller

People's first question is usually some version of "wait, I don't have to install anything?" No — and it isn't a trick. Here's what actually happens between scanning the QR code and steering a neon race car, in plain English.

The QR code is just a web address

When a host screen opens a room, it generates a four-letter room code and displays it as a QR code. Scanning it opens a normal web page in your phone's browser with the room code already filled in. That's the entire onboarding: a URL. It works identically on iPhone and Android because it's the same web page either way — no app store, no account, no permissions dialog.

A live two-way connection

Once you pick a name and color, your browser opens a WebSocket — a persistent, two-way connection to the game server. Every tap, swipe, and joystick drag on your phone travels down that connection to the server, which runs the actual game simulation (60 updates per second for the action games). The server streams the results back out: the TV gets the full arena view, and your phone gets its personal view — your cards, your steering wheel, your secret role.

That split is the trick that makes party games work: the TV shows what's public, your phone shows what's private. In a bluffing game, the fakes stay hidden; in Werewolf, only you know what you are.

What happens when a phone sleeps or drops

Real parties are hostile network environments — phones sleep, people walk to the kitchen, someone's battery dies. The platform is built around that:

Your player slot — name, color, score, place in the game — stays reserved when your connection drops. Nobody gets kicked for a dark screen.
When your phone wakes, the page reconnects and reclaims your slot automatically. If anything looks off, refreshing the page snaps you straight back in — the room remembers you.
Even the host TV can be refreshed without ending the party: it resumes the same room, players untouched.

Why latency is fine on a browser

"Browser game" used to mean laggy. Two things changed: WebSockets carry inputs with a few milliseconds of overhead, and when everyone shares the host's WiFi the round-trip is measured in single-digit to low-double-digit milliseconds — comfortably below what human reflexes notice. Turn-based and writing games don't care about latency at all; racing and arena games feel immediate on the same network.

What we don't need from you

No account. You pick a display name per room; that's it.
No install, no permissions. The browser tab is the whole footprint. Close it and it's gone.
No saved data. Rooms are held in server memory and destroyed when the party ends — scores and names go with them. Details in our privacy policy.

Curious what's playable? The game library lists every title with how-to-play steps, or start with the hosting guide.