Schmingo

Set up a game

1. Go to New event, enter the name and date, and pick a board.
2. Save your host link. It's your key: it runs the game and shows the results. Copy it, or email it to yourself.
3. Open the host link on the laptop connected to the projector. The QR code for players is on that screen.

Test before the day

1. Open your host link and set the minutes to 1.
2. Scan the QR code with a phone and type a name. (With a pass, use two phones.)
3. Press Start. The card opens by itself within a few seconds.
4. Press Stop, then New round. The phone gets a fresh card for the real game. Don't press End event: that closes the whole event.
5. A free game counts every phone that joins, across all rounds, up to 10. Test with one phone, or enter your pass first.

On the day

• Start opens every card. Stop ends the game on every phone. New round gives everyone a fresh card and keeps their name.
• Players who arrive late scan the QR code and join the running game.
• The clock on the big screen changes color in the last 2 minutes.
• Winners come to you. Their phone says "You won" with their card number; the same number is on your prize cards and under "All cards".

When something goes wrong

• The Wi-Fi is slow or down. Phones on mobile data still work. Phones that can't reach us can type the 4-digit code shown on the big screen.
• A card doesn't open. Ask the player to type the join code under the QR code into the box under their name. It opens the card.
• The laptop dies. Open your host link on any other device, even a phone. The round keeps running.
• A colleague should co-host. Send them the host link. Whoever has it can run the game.
• The host link went to the wrong person. On the host screen, open "Your links and results" and press "Make a new host link". The old one stops working.
• Someone opened the QR code in another app (LinkedIn, a scanner app). Ask them to open the link in Safari or Chrome, so the card is saved.

Passes

• Free games: up to 10 players, the Classic board, a plain FREE center. Options marked PASS on the host screen need a pass.
• After buying on the pricing page you get a code like EP-XXXX-XXXX. Enter it under "Your pass" on your host screen. The code is shown once on the thank-you page; save it.
• An Event Pass runs 3 days from the moment you enter it, and stays with that event. Enter it the day before your event at the earliest. If you entered it on the wrong event, write to us with your receipt number and we'll move it.
• A Year Pass runs 12 months from the day you buy it and works on any number of events. The host screen remembers it on that computer.
• Lost the code? Have it sent again to the email address you paid with.

Lost your pass code?

Enter the email address you paid with. We'll send every pass code bought with it to that address.

Lost your host link?

If you used this browser to create the event or open its host screen, open the player link and add #host at the end. This browser remembers the key.

Otherwise, write to us with the event name, the date and, if you bought an Event Pass, your receipt. We'll send you a new host link.

Your own squares

On the host screen, open "Your own squares". Type one square per line: short text | Try asking | Go deeper. The short text finishes "Find someone who…", so start it with a verb. You need at least 24 squares.

• Start from the selected board copies a ready-made board into the box, so you can change a few squares instead of writing all of them.
• Suggest questions with AI adds the "Try asking" and "Go deeper" questions to your squares, and fixes squares that don't start with a verb or touch sensitive topics. It tells you which ones it changed.
• Draft a board writes a whole board from a short description of your event and who will be there.

Always read the result before you save. You know your room better than the AI does.

Results

On the host screen, open Results. You see how many people played, the conversations, the ratings, who played, and every answer players wrote. Download answers (CSV) gives you a spreadsheet of the answers with your own questions as column headings. Player counts are anonymous: no names ever leave a player's phone. Answers are kept for 30 days, so download them soon after the event.

Contact

Email hello@schmingo.com. We reply within one working day.