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
- Sound on or offThe speaker, bottom right of the arena
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 this site your seat is yours until you leave, and a finished match waits for a tap. On a kiosk, an untouched seat goes back to the computer after ten seconds, so the next visitor finds a fresh game.
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, and M turns the sound on and off.
The sound switch is the one thing the game remembers on your device. In kiosk mode on a shared screen it starts with the sound off and remembers nothing.
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.
Build Log
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Build 6
On this site, nothing takes your game away while the page is open: an untouched seat stays yours, and the result waits for a tap. On a kiosk, an untouched seat still goes back to the computer after ten seconds, so the next visitor finds a fresh game.
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Build 5
On a shared screen in kiosk mode, the game now starts with the sound off and stores nothing, so one visitor's choice never reaches the next. When a visit ends and the game returns to its title, the sound goes off again. On launchwaygames.com the sound switch still remembers your choice.
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Build 4
Sound now has a switch: a speaker in the arena's bottom-right corner, opposite the Launchway mark, or M on a keyboard. Off turns the master volume to nothing, so even a sound already playing stops, and the game stops scheduling new ones. The choice is remembered on the device under yours-now-sound, the only thing the game stores. During play the button sits under the characters, so it never hides one, and tapping it never takes a seat or starts a rematch.
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 drawn from the game’s own arena, character and balloon code.
Yours Now is original work by Launchway Games.