Free 2 player paddle tennis on one phone or tablet

How to start

1. Open bigboard.games on one phone or tablet and tap Start a table.
2. Pick the game; the players at this device are set before the match.
3. Lay the device flat between you and play.

One screen, two ends

Start a table on one phone or tablet with two people on it and pick Paddle Tennis. The court lies along the screen's long side, whichever way you hold it, with a goal line at each short end: sit across from each other with the device flat between you.

Nobody waits for a turn. The screen splits across the middle, and a finger anywhere on your half slides your paddle, one to one, so you never cover the ball with your hand. A ghost finger on each paddle shows how before the first serve. A tablet gives the most room; with a phone each, paddle tennis on two phones gives each player a whole screen.

Hold it still

The court is fixed to the screen. Where the browser can lock the orientation, it does; where it can't, turning the device mid-match pauses the game until you turn it back, and the rally ends with no point, so a bumped phone never costs one.

Pick the match before you start: first to 5, 7 or 11 points. Arcade's power-ups and blocks play on one screen too, and the Aim guide draws each player's own dotted line. Air Hockey and Hot Potato also put two players on one screen at once; see the 2 player games on one phone.

The end, and a bot instead

When the match ends, the result comes up as a split card, one copy facing each player, so neither of you reads it upside down. Rematch starts the next one straight away, with nobody getting up from the table.

Alone? The far end can be a bot instead of a friend, at Easy, Medium, Hard or Impossible. It plays from the same device, and the end card then faces you alone. When more friends turn up with their own phones, push the devices together and the same game becomes a court for three or four, as in 4 player paddle tennis.

Pass and play: questions and answers