A hundred people cannot take turns. Above about twenty players, Rakket stops running one game for everybody and starts running many copies of the same game at once, between teams that stay together all evening.
The room is dealt into stable teams. Each round, a Swiss ladder pairs those teams into heats (separate, simultaneous matches of the same game) so every player is playing at the same moment rather than watching four people on a stage.
Between rounds the ladder re-pairs on record, so teams meet opponents at their own level and the evening stays close. The display shows the standings for the whole hall; the heat itself lives on the phones, which is what makes the count scale past what one screen could show.
Everyone is placed in a team that stays theirs for the evening. Teams are named rather than numbered, because a hall shouting for Team 7 is not a hall having a good time.
A Swiss ladder puts teams into heats: separate, simultaneous matches of the same game. Every player is playing at the same moment rather than waiting for a turn.
After each round the ladder matches teams that have done equally well, so the evening converges instead of producing one runaway winner by round two.
The display shows the hall’s standings. Each heat plays out on the phones, which is what lets the player count go past what one screen could ever show.
These three keep every player busy for the whole heat, which is what a crowd needs.
Answer a blitz prompt, then swipe through duels to crown the funniest.
Vote your team through a maze race. Majority rules, literally.
Two teams, one rope, one beat: keep time and drag the ratchet your way.
Two things, and neither is the software. The first is the network: every phone holds one small connection, so it is the number of access points rather than the size of the line that decides whether a hundred people are comfortable: one router covering a function room is the usual failure, and it fails at about the moment the room fills.
The second is the schedule. A ladder needs whole rounds, so the useful question is not how many minutes you have but how many rounds fit in them: four rounds of a five-minute game plus the talking between them is about forty-five minutes, and that is a real slot rather than an optimistic one. Above a hundred players it stops being a setting and becomes a room plan, which is worth a conversation before the day rather than after it.
We have tested it with a hundred players. Above that, we would rather talk through the room and network before the day than troubleshoot them during it.
No. Teams are stable for the whole ladder; only the pairings change, and they change on record.
The standings for the room. Each heat plays out on its own players' phones at the same time.
Every phone holds one lightweight connection. It is the access-point count in the room, not the bandwidth, that decides whether a hall is comfortable.
Their team plays on. A player who drops out rejoins with the same code and returns to the same team and the same running total.
One is enough, because it only ever shows the standings. Several around a long room helps people read it, and they all show the same thing.
Tell us the headcount, the room and the slot, and we will plan the ladder with you.
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