Yours Now
Bump into someone to pass the balloon. Don’t be holding it when it pops.
What it is
Hot potato and tag, merged into a single rule, for one to four people on one screen. Whoever holds the balloon has to reach somebody else and bump into them. Whoever is holding it when it pops is out. Last one standing takes the round, first to two takes the match.
Both halves of the rule are on the title screen in full, because pass the balloon on its own never told anybody how.
The chase is meant to be winnable
Whoever holds the balloon moves faster than everyone else. Without that edge nobody is ever caught at equal speeds and the round never resolves.
The fuse gets shorter the longer one balloon stays in play, so a huddle passing it between three people cannot go on forever. And a balloon that has just changed hands cannot go straight back — shown as a shrinking ring on whoever gave it away.
The balloon is the timer. It grows as the fuse burns down, so it is full size on the frame it pops and never before. Nothing else on screen needs watching.
How to play
- Take a cornerTouch it on the title
- MovePush with your thumb
- Pass it onBump into somebody
The stick appears wherever your thumb lands and follows it. The direction you push is the direction you go, at either end of the screen and in either orientation.
Joining mid-match takes a deliberate drag rather than a tap, because a lone player's spare thumb tends to rest in another corner and must not claim a seat by accident.
On a desktop, four sets of keys drive the four corners — W A S D, T F G H, I J K L and the arrows — each matching where its character sits on screen. The corners name their keys when a mouse is detected.
Held flat, or stood up
Upright, two seats sit at each end and the far end's words are turned for whoever is reading them. Turn it sideways and the whole table rotates so every word is upright. The first suits a phone between two people; the second suits a kiosk.
What isn't settled yet
Whether four people will crowd one screen, and whether the rule reads without anyone explaining. Two lines on a title screen is a lot to ask of somebody walking past.
Credits and licences
No third-party engine — it draws to a plain canvas. The typefaces it does use are embedded under the SIL Open Font Licence, with the copyright notice retained in the shipped file. Cover art was composited from a base image created with Manus.
Yours Now is original work by Launchway Games.