How to play party games on your TV with phones as controllers

Open roomful.hatcherylake.com/host in your TV's web browser, or on a laptop connected to the TV. The TV shows a four-letter code; everyone opens roomful.hatcherylake.com/play on their phone and types it. The phones are the controllers, and nobody installs anything.

Host on this screen

Opens the room set up for Read the Room. Phones join with the code it shows.

Start Read the Room

Join from a phone

Type the code on the big screen.

Getting the game onto the TV

A smart TV with a web browser

Open the TV's browser app, go to roomful.hatcherylake.com/host, and the room opens. Use the TV remote only to press Start; everything else happens on the phones.

A laptop and an HDMI cable

Plug the laptop into the TV, switch the TV to that input, and open roomful.hatcherylake.com/host in the laptop's browser. Make the window full screen.

Casting a browser tab

If your TV takes a cast from a laptop's browser, open the host page in a tab and cast that tab to the TV.

No TV at all

A laptop on the coffee table works for 3 to 5 people.

Joining from the phones

Each player opens roomful.hatcherylake.com/play, or scans the QR code on the TV.
They type the four letters on the TV and pick one of 12 animals.
Their animal appears on the TV. When at least 2 phones are in, the host can start.

Sound

Sound plays from the big screen, so turn the TV up. The host page has a Sound on/off switch.

Questions

Do the phones need an app?

No. They use the phone's web browser.

Does the TV need to be on the same Wi-Fi as the phones?

No. Every screen connects to the website, so a phone on cellular data can join too.

Does anyone need to install anything?

No. The big screen and every phone just open roomful.hatcherylake.com in a browser.