Move the shelf
A file is your own copy, and it opens on any browser. Import puts every party in the file onto this shelf.
Both need a pass.
Memories
These files never leave this computer. There is no upload and no bucket, so a party opened on a different device cannot show them. That is the honest consequence of the promise, not a bug.
Drop photos and videos here
or tap to choose. They stay on this computer.
Pick a party
Then hand the phone over.
Who is it for
The name goes on the opening screen, and the age sets the candles on the cake.
Who is in the room
These are the names offered whenever a challenge says pick somebody. Tap a face to change it, or give somebody an emoji instead.
Add somebody fast
Tap a name to drop it straight in. You can rename it after.
The challenges
Tap to add one. Everything you add lands in the running order below, where you can reorder it, rewrite it, change its picture, or throw it out.
Write your own
Anything you want them to do. Pick how the page should handle it.
The running order
Nothing added yet.
The gifts
These are what they get to choose from at the end. Write real ones you are happy to be held to.
How it looks
All of this is how the game feels to play. None of it changes what the challenges are.
Colour world
The game shifts from the first colour to the second as they get through it.
Pictures
Drawn scenes are the house style. Emoji are quicker to read for a younger kid, and you can still override any single one from its own row.
The opening animation
What plays for a second or two while the party opens.
The ending
After the last challenge the page runs a fake check, then springs the joke. You can turn the joke off and go straight to the gifts.
Launch it
Play it yourself first. The preview is the real game, start to finish, and it costs nothing.
Opens in a new tab and runs for 60 seconds, which is the whole thing end to end.
Send it for real
You are buying a link, and the link is the whole party.
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This is how long your link will be. Shorter links make a QR code that scans more easily and survive every messaging app. It has no effect on the price.
Keep a copy
The party lives in the link and nowhere else, so if you want it next year, save the file. Saving a copy never costs anything.
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How to set it up, and how to play it
What this actually is
You build a run of small challenges. The kid works through them on one phone or tablet. At the end the page pretends the gift is locked, runs a fake check, tells them they failed, and then springs the joke and opens the gifts you wrote.
It takes about fifteen to twenty five minutes to play with ten to fifteen challenges, longer if the room gets involved, which it will.
Setting it up, in order
- Who it is for. Their name goes on the opening screen and the age sets the candles on the cake.
- Who is in the room. Everybody who will actually be there. These names are what a challenge offers when it says pick somebody, so a name nobody recognises breaks the moment. Use the quick add chips, then rename.
- The challenges. Pick from the library, search it, or write your own. Ten to fifteen is the sweet spot. Fewer than six is over too quickly; more than twenty and the room drifts off.
- The gifts. Write real ones. The kid picks a set number of them at the end and the last screen is the receipt, so do not put anything on the list you are not prepared to hand over.
- How it looks. Colour world, drawn pictures or emoji, and the little animation that plays while it opens.
- The link. Copy it, or use the QR code, and open it on the device you will drive from. Put that screen on the television and let the birthday kid stand in front of the room. It is not a link you hand to the kid.
The kinds of challenge
Every challenge is one of these six. The kind decides what the kid sees and when the Next button lights up.
Running it on the day
- One device, held by the birthday kid. Open the link, hand it over, and let them drive. A grown up should stay close enough to read the screen.
- Read the instructions out loud. The room joining in is most of the fun and it is what makes the dares land.
- The Next button stays grey until the challenge is done. That is deliberate. It is what stops a kid skimming the whole thing in ninety seconds.
- There is a skip. Bottom right, and it needs a deliberate three second hold. Use it if a challenge does not suit the room. Skipped challenges do not count towards the score, and the last screen says so honestly.
- They can go back. The arrow in the top bar, or the menu, jumps to any step.
- Sound is on. The speaker button in the top bar turns it off if you are somewhere quiet.
- The fake check is the payoff. Do not spoil it. Leave it running, let them believe it, and let the room watch their face.
Putting it on the television
The kid still holds the phone and taps. The TV is only there so the whole room can read the challenge at once, which is when it gets loud. It is a normal web page, so anything that shows a web page will show this.
- A cable, the most reliable. HDMI straight out of a laptop. From a newer iPhone, iPad or Android phone, a USB-C to HDMI adapter does the same. Nothing to set up, nothing to buffer, and no wifi involved.
- AirPlay, iPhone or iPad. Swipe into Control Centre, tap Screen Mirroring, pick the Apple TV or the AirPlay television. Works with any recent Samsung, LG or Sony set.
- Chromecast or Google TV. In Chrome on a laptop, the three dot menu then Cast, and choose Cast tab. On Android, Cast from the quick settings panel.
- Samsung Smart View, or Miracast on Windows. Windows key and K on a laptop, or Smart View in the Android quick settings.
- The television's own browser. Most smart TVs and every game console have one. Open it and type the link, and the game plays on the TV itself with no phone involved at all.
- A cheap stick. A Fire TV Stick or a Chromecast turns any TV with an HDMI socket into one that can do all of the above.
Two things worth knowing. Mirroring over wifi lags by about half a second, which does not matter for this but does look odd on the countdown, so use a cable if you have one. And turn the TV's screen saver off, because a 60 second challenge with nobody touching the screen will trigger it.
Somebody driving from a keyboard or a remote? The game plays entirely from the keyboard. Press ? during the game for the full list: Space does the main thing on screen, the arrows move between steps, and the number keys pick a person.
Sending it
- The link is long, because the entire party is inside it. That is what lets it open on any device without anybody signing in.
- Some apps cut long links. The builder warns you past 2,000 characters. If yours is over, trim a couple of custom challenges or shorten their wording.
- The QR code is the reliable route. Point the kid's camera at your screen and it opens, no typing and nothing to cut short. Keep the party smaller for a code that scans easily off a phone: the builder tells you when the square is getting too fine.
- Do not post it publicly. Anybody with the link can open it.
If something goes wrong
- "No party here." The link got cut on the way. Send it again, use the QR code, or send it through something that does not shorten links.
- The QR code will not scan. Make the party smaller, or save it as a picture and print it bigger. A fine grid off a phone screen is hard for another phone.
- No sound. Some phones will not play sound until the screen has been tapped once. Tap Start and it comes in.
- A timer that will not start. It has its own start button on purpose, so nobody loses seconds while the room is still reading.
- You lost the link. Your unfinished party is remembered in this browser, and you can save it as a file from the last screen.
What is stored
We hold it and we cannot read it. The link carries the whole party in the part of the address after the #, which browsers never send to any server. Keep the party in an account and a locked copy does reach us: your browser seals it with a key derived from your password before it leaves your device, and that key never reaches us either.
The consequence is the honest one: if you lose the link, the party is gone. Save it as a file if you want it again.
Guest list
Add everybody you are inviting. The shopping list uses these numbers, and the name drawer uses these names.
Sending the invitations
This opens your own mail app with everybody already in it. We do not send it and we never see the addresses.
About the reply-to-confirm link. A guest clicking a link that records their answer needs somewhere for that answer to be recorded, and asking every guest to sign in for that would be worse than just asking them to reply.
So the invitation email asks them to reply, and the reply arrives in your inbox with a subject you can see at a glance. Tick them off above as the replies come in. It is one extra tap for you, and your guests never have to sign in for anything.
Shopping list
Tick a suggestion to add it. Quantities size themselves to the number of guests coming, and you can change any of them.
Your list
Nothing on it yet.
Munchies
A whole menu, made from parts and sized to the guests who said yes. Set the three switches, press the button, swap anything you do not like, then send the lot to the shopping list.
Press one to rule everything else out. Tags are a starting point: a sausage is gluten free or it is not depending on the packet, and nothing in a browser can read the packet.
What your own guest list says
Read straight off the guest list. Nothing here is guessed and nothing here is a filter: it is the thing to check the menu against before you buy any of it.
The menu
Nothing yet. Press Make me a menu.
How much of it to make
Six numbers that do not change with the menu.
Keeping it safe to eat
Not one of these is a reason to drop the food. Each one is the sentence that makes it safe.
The whole cupboard
Everything the generator picks from, by the plate it belongs on. Tick one to put it straight on the shopping list without waiting for it to come up.
The invitation
Fills itself in from the day. Print it, save it as a picture, or send the words by email.
A link for each person
Every guest gets their own link that opens the invitation with their name on it. The invitation travels inside the link itself, which is why each one is different. Keep the party in an account and a locked copy of your guest list reaches us: we hold it and we cannot read it.
Send them by email
One message per guest, each one carrying that guest's own link. We send it once and keep nothing: the link passes through us and is forgotten, which is why a guest who loses it has to be sent a new one rather than a copy.
Follow ups
Game ideas
Made from parts rather than pulled off a list, so you will not get the same eight ideas everybody else got. Any of them can go straight into the birthday game as a real challenge.
Draw a name
Picks somebody at random out of the guests who are coming. For deciding who goes first, without an argument.
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Saved in this browser
This browser
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Signed in somewhere you do not recognise, or on a phone you no longer have? This ends every one of them, including this browser, and you sign back in with your password.
A pass from before
Buying a party unlocks its game and its planner together, so there is nothing else to buy here. If you hold a restore code from the old dashboard pass, this is where it goes.
Your own restore code. Keep it somewhere: it is what gets you back in if you clear this browser.