Experiments is the corner of the site for games that stayed with me since I was a kid, for simulators, and for other experiments I make for play. The engineering work stays on the home page. This page is for the board, the pits, the falling blocks, and the runs that are not a forecast.
The table is a link.
Someone opens Experiments, creates a room, and sends the URL. Someone else opens that same link on another phone, or in another city. They join. They do not invent a second lobby. Voice and camera ride with the seats that play. A fifth person can watch the board; they do not get a mic unless the host says so.
Parchís is the one I knew as a child. Online it takes up to four. Each seat can be a person or a machine. Pass and play still works on the same keyboard. Bantumi is the mancala I played on a Nokia on the metro to work in Madrid. Cantera is falling blocks. Both run online for two, with the same voice path. One room pattern for every online game.
Same room, different boards
When a new online game shows up, four rules apply:
- It uses the same room flow. It does not invent a parallel lobby.
- A guest joins through the link, not by hitting Start.
- Voice and camera belong to the seats that play. Watchers stay quiet unless the host opens that option.
- Pass and play on one machine stays. Online is an extra seat path, not a replacement.
That is the dull half. The bright half is the board itself: a five to leave home, a sow into the store, a cleared row. I want the people at the link looking at that, not at a menu that differs per game.
What stays in one browser
Not everything needs a room. Population, Coast, and Contagion are simulators for one visit. Triangle, Kiln, The Snake, Viking, Viking II, and Pacman stay pass-and-play or solo. High scores stay in this browser. The year plate on Coast, the shocks on Population, the village ledger on Viking - those are for the person in front of the screen.
Experiments is beta on purpose. Some things may break. The point is not a launch deck. The point is that a childhood board, a Nokia mancala, and a few simulators sit under the same menu as the CV - and that when friends are not in the same room, "send me the link" is enough.