Deckster

Getting a group to play a quiz together usually depends on the one thing a room often doesn't have: a working connection for every phone in it. A code read out twice, a link in the group chat, an account each, somebody's data running out halfway through. In a classroom with no Wi-Fi, it never starts at all.

Deckster removes the requirement. One phone turns on its hotspot and becomes the server; every other phone connects to it, and the same question appears on all of them at once, on a shared clock. The 4,468 questions ship inside the app, so nothing is ever fetched. There is no backend — nothing is uploaded, because there is nowhere to upload it to.

What makes it unusual is what falls out of that. Joining is just connecting to a hotspot, so there are no codes, links or addresses to type by anyone. A teacher's questions and answers never leave their phone. And a player's device is only ever sent a projection of the game state, which makes it structurally incapable of receiving an answer before the reveal — not a rule someone has to remember, but a shape the data cannot take.

A moderated mode hands one person the round without putting them in it. Each question pauses twice: once when answers lock, so the room can argue before it finds out, and again for the reveal.