OGS for game developers Markdown

Rules and taste

What every OGS game does, and why. The binding list is §5 of the contract; this page explains each rule and how to check it.

1. No cast button

OGS casts once for the whole evening; the launcher frames your game. A game never starts a cast, never shows a cast button or a "cast to TV" prompt, and never ships a cast receiver for OGS. Inside the OGS app the app ignores a game's own cast actions anyway.

Check: search the phone page for a cast button and remove it; room games keep only useCastViewUrl (see Quickstart, step 8).

2. No join codes on an OGS TV

People join the couch with the launcher's TV code; phones already land in your game. On an OGS TV, show no room code, no join QR, no "join at …" URL. Outside OGS (a plain browser) keep them: that is how people join there.

Check: framed after ogs:start there is no code or QR; opened directly there is.

Planned (contract §8): the launcher will draw its own join QR and an invite card in one corner, and a game may ask for it with ogs:invite. Keep that corner (top-right by default, at most 220×120 px on a 960×540 reference with a 24 px margin) free of your focal area and HUD.

3. Nothing over the focal area

The TV is the shared screen everyone watches from the sofa. Whatever the game is about right now (the board, the character, the question) stays uncovered: HUD, scores and toasts live at the edges, small and brief.

Check: screenshots of every phase at 1280×720 and 1920×1080; nothing overlaps the focal element.

4. Inside the safe area

TVs crop their edges. Keep every element that matters at least 5% in from each edge of the TV page, and remember that a focus or hover scale() grows an element past that line: scale it away from the edge.

Check: at 1280×720, 1920×1080 and 3840×2160, every visible element's bounding box is inside the 5% inset.

5. Silent while parked

Home or another game parks your frame: it stays loaded so Continue is instant, so its sound keeps playing unless you stop it. On ogs:suspend (onOgsPause(true)) suspend the AudioContext, pause media, and stop anything that would start a sound. On ogs:resume resume only what was playing.

Check: the pause seam test.

6. Starts without a tap

There is no pointer or keyboard on the TV. The TV page starts, plays sound and animates on load, and is driven entirely from the phones. No "click to start", no full-screen button when framed.

7. Still a plain web game

Without OGS the game is complete: its own name form, room code and TV link, and full play end to end. Every profile-kit call returns null or does nothing there, so keep your own path behind those nulls.

Check: the plain-browser test.

8. Trust only verified tokens

Use verifyOgsToken on your server for anything that matters: seats, scores, names other people see. A game sees only game tokens for itself, never the app's or the launcher's own token. A token tells you a profile id, handle, name and avatar, and on a TV the couch: never friends, other games, device ids or age. Don't ask for more.

9. Phones: the OGS profile replaces your name form

Inside the OGS app, join under the OGS name and avatar without a form, and hide your own join-code entry. Join once per seat; the app refreshes the token and a new token must not join again.

Taste

  • Your game's own look: don't copy another OGS game's art direction.
  • No faces on objects (rockets, planets, props).
  • Big, legible type on the TV, read from a sofa three metres away.
  • Phones and iPads are controllers: big targets where thumbs rest, near the bottom edge.