Mixed & remote play

It’s not a video stream — it’s one shared state

The Stage doesn’t broadcast video of itself to phones; every device in a room — the Stage and every phone — reads the exact same live game state. When a prompt changes on the Stage, every phone knows instantly. When a player taps an answer, the Stage sees it instantly. That’s why a phone can sit right next to the TV or sit in a different city and behave exactly the same way.

Bringing in remote friends

To pull someone in from anywhere, share the room’s join link — play.animaos.com/j/CODE with your actual room code swapped in — instead of, or alongside, the QR code. They open the link on their own phone or laptop, land straight in the room, and become a player like anyone else. No separate remote mode to toggle, no extra setup.

What a remote player actually sees

A remote friend sees their own phone screen exactly the way a couch player does — their controller, their prompts, their private info when a game calls for it. What they don’t get is the Stage view itself, so it helps to have someone on a video call, on speakerphone, or just narrating so remote players catch the big reveals and reactions happening in the room.

Same room, different rooms

Because everyone is reading the same synchronized state, you can freely mix: half the group on the couch, a couple of friends dialed in from elsewhere, all in the same 4-letter room, all playing the same round at the same time.