What it is
Each device shows its own part of a single board. Where two screens meet, the game carries on across the seam: a puck, a potato or a chess piece leaves one screen and comes in on the next. That's why the devices lie flat, edge to edge and screens up.
Any mix plays together: iPhone with Android, a phone with a tablet. Most games also play on a single device, and bots can fill empty seats in nearly all of them. Below are the games you can play now; games to play on multiple phones compares them side by side.
How it works
Open bigboard.games in the browser on each device and tap Start a table on one of them. On the same Wi-Fi the others find the table by themselves; elsewhere, scan its QR code or type its four-letter code. Then lay the devices flat, edge to edge, and pick a game. How to play games on two phones together walks through it step by step.
In a match the devices talk to each other directly. When they can't reach each other, on mobile data for example, a secure relay connects them. Someone who isn't in the room can join too, with the table's link or code: their screen shows the whole board, turned to them, and they play from there.
Why it exists
Game night shouldn't need a console, a box of cards or an app store. Nearly everyone at a table already has a phone, and laid side by side those screens are big enough for a real board. BIGBOARD.GAMES joins them into one, so the people around it play together, face to face, rather than each on their own screen.
It's free and runs in the browser, so anyone in the room can join in: there's nothing to install and no account to make.
And the board can be any screen with a browser: a phone, a tablet or a TV. A device can join the table as just a screen, with nobody playing on it, and simply show the game.
Who makes it
BIGBOARD.GAMES is made by Nikita Savchenko.
Get in touch
A question, an idea for a game, or something that didn't work? Write to us, or find BIGBOARD.GAMES on social media. The founder's own site is here too.