Free hot potato game for 4 people

How to start

1. Open bigboard.games on every device and tap Start a table on one of them.
2. The others join by themselves on the same Wi-Fi; elsewhere, scan the QR code or type the four-letter code.
3. Lay the devices edge to edge, screens up, as the drawing shows, and pick the game.

A cross of four screens

Lay two devices facing each other, top edges touching, and put the other two across the ends of that pair. Every player sits at their own side of the table with their own field, and the potato can cross from any screen to the ones it touches. The other 4 player games here seat four the same way, a screen each.

Phones and tablets mix freely. And four people don't need four devices: a device can be shared, cut into a zone for each person at the edge they sit at, two halves for two, a band at each end and the middle split for four. The potato crosses a zone line just as it crosses a seam.

More potatoes, more noise

With four players the power-ups matter more. Double trouble drops a second potato on another live field for 8 seconds, so two can be flying at once; every finger grabs on its own, so you can flick both. The slingshot sends a potato on at 1.5 metres a second, half again a hard flick.

As each player is cooked, their field keeps sliding potatoes on toward the players still in, as in the hot potato game for 3, and the heat keeps rising until one is left.

If someone has to go

A device that drops out pauses the match on every screen while it reconnects. If it doesn't come back, its players are out and the rest play on without it.

Short a fourth? A bot fills the seat with a zone at the edge of the field, and plays by the same rules: it holds the potato a moment, then flicks it at whoever has the most fuse left. The device under its seat runs it, so it needs no phone of its own.

4 players: questions and answers