Free hot potato game with bots

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 finger of its own

A bot plays by the same hot potato rules as you. It takes a potato that will come to rest on its field, holds it a moment, drawing it toward the middle of its field as a wind-up, and flicks it on. The hold lasts from 0.3 to 1.6 seconds, and gets shorter as its fuse burns down.

It aims at the player with the most fuse left, so it goes after whoever is safest; about one throw in four goes at anyone instead. Its aim is off by up to 7 degrees and its speed by a little, so now and then it misses.

Just you and a bot

On your own, start a table on one phone or tablet and add a bot. The screen splits into two zones, yours and the bot's, as in 2 player hot potato, and this device runs the bot. Pick a fuse of 12, 20 or 30 seconds and the rest is the usual game: the heat rises, power-ups appear, and the first one cooked loses.

A finger only ever plays for the person whose zone it touched, never for the bot, so a stray thumb can't throw for it. When it ends, the card faces you and says whether you won. Rematch starts another straight away.

Bots in empty seats

With friends, Add a bot seats the bot at the edge of the field, with a zone of its own on the screen there, like a person sitting at that edge. A potato thrown its way lands in its zone, and you can watch its hold move there too.

Bots count as players, up to 12 at a table with the people, so two friends and two bots make a hot potato game for 4. The device under a bot's seat runs it; if that device leaves mid-match, the bot is out with it.

With bots: questions and answers