TableNight/Guides/Playing remotely
Guide · Remote play
Playing over a video call without it turning into a meeting
The principle is simple: one person shares the board, everyone else answers from their phone. What ruins remote evenings is never the game — it is the audio, the lag on the shared screen, and the fact that at a distance nobody knows when it is their turn to speak.
The setup that works
In TableNight's games the big screen and the phones are two separate things: the first holds what everybody must see, the second what concerns only you. Remotely that separation becomes an advantage, because the "board" can travel inside the video call while answers stay private on each person's device.
- Start the video call as usual Meet, Zoom, Teams, WhatsApp, FaceTime: anything that allows screen sharing. It is only the channel for seeing and hearing each other.
- One person opens the game board Preferably on a computer, not a phone: a shared phone screen is smaller, slower and harder for everyone else to read.
- They share only the game window Not the whole desktop. Sharing everything means showing incoming notifications, the bookmarks bar and — in a hidden-role game — potentially something that was not meant to be seen.
- Everyone else opens the site on their phone They type the room code they can see in the shared screen and play from there, keeping the video call on a computer or tablet.
The key point: nobody should play on the same device they are watching the call on. If the phone has to do both jobs, every answer forces them out of the call and that person disappears from the conversation halfway through the game.
Audio: the thing that ruins everything
Ninety per cent of the problems in a remote evening are audio, not gameplay. Three rules solve nearly all of them.
- People in the same room need a single live microphone. If three of you are in the same living room with three laptops connected, mute the microphone and speakers on two. Otherwise the sound loops back and the echo makes it impossible to tell who is speaking.
- Don't share computer audio unless you need it. TableNight's games have no essential sound: sharing system audio only adds noise and delay.
- Headphones for anyone alone. Anybody joining from home on their own should use headphones or earbuds: it kills echo at the source, before the software even tries to cancel it.
Lag, and when it matters
A shared screen reaches the others with a delay of anywhere between one and four seconds, depending on the connection. In most cases it does not matter. It matters in exactly one situation: when the score depends on how quickly you answer.
In the quiz, whoever is sharing sees the question before everybody else, and since answering fast is worth more points they start with an advantage. There are two honest fixes:
- the person sharing the screen referees and does not play;
- or you accept that speed counts for less and play in teams, where the answer has to be agreed anyway.
In Cronos and Full Moon the lag is irrelevant: you vote after discussing, and the discussion lasts a lot longer than three seconds.
The mixed group: half in the room, half dialled in
This is the most common situation and the most delicate. Five people in a living room and three joining from elsewhere naturally drift into two separate groups: the people in the room talk over the call, and the people dialled in hear an indistinct noise and stop contributing.
Two adjustments make it manageable. The first is putting the computer with the video call inside the circle, not on a side table at the back of the room: remote players need to see faces, not the backs of heads. The second is nominating somebody to explicitly hand the floor to the remote players at least once per round. It sounds formal, and it is the only thing that stops the remote group from evaporating.
Which games work best remotely
Full Moon — surprisingly, yes
This is the game that works best at a distance, for a counter-intuitive reason: on a video call every face is on screen at the same time, which never happens at a real table. On top of that nobody can peek at their neighbour's phone, which in person is the number one problem of hidden-role games. The only thing to settle first is who speaks when, because talking over each other is far more annoying remotely.
Cronos — yes, with teams by location
It works well if the teams match the places: everyone in the living room forms one team, everyone dialled in forms another. That way the internal discussion happens in person and only the result travels down the call. Mixed teams of present and remote players are possible but require patience.
Quiz — yes, with the lag caveat
It is the easiest to set up and the best choice if the remote people do not know each other. Just remember the advantage held by whoever shares the screen.
Two minutes of testing before you start
It is always worth spending two minutes before the real evening begins:
- whoever is sharing opens the board and asks whether it is readable — if anybody has to squint, enlarge the window instead of raising the resolution;
- get everybody into the game room and check the names appear on the board;
- check there is no echo by having one person speak at a time.
There is a technical reason to open early too: the game servers shut down when nobody is using them, and the first launch of the evening can take up to a minute. Doing it while people are still joining avoids the moment when eight people stare at a loading screen.