Party Hub

We wanted family game night on a cruise ship, where the Wi-Fi costs a fortune and there's no TV to plug into. So one Android phone runs the whole thing. It makes its own hotspot, everyone joins from their phone's browser with a QR code, and every screen shows the same stage at the same moment, with a private panel underneath for your answers. Six original games, each with its own voiced host character, and a house rating dial that goes from kid-safe to very much not.

Every game has a host with a personality, and they do the explaining, so nobody has to read the rules out loud. Our favourite is the one where you guess what percentage of people admit to something, then bet on whether your friends guessed higher or lower.

Highlights

• Works fully offline over the host phone's hotspot; guests need nothing installed
• Six original games, from bluff trivia to a survey-guessing game built on thousands of checked stats
• Five host characters with thousands of written lines, plus optional on-device AI voice and quips
• House Cards, so the family can write its own prompts and inside jokes into any game
• A TV mode for a big screen, and bots to fill a seat when you're one player short