Start a room and run the game

A room is a live game: one PIN, one console for you, one big screen, and the players’ phones. This page covers opening a room, the choices to make before starting, driving the game, and closing it.

Open a room

A quiz must be Ready to be played. On a draft, the dashboard shows Publish to present instead.

Choose Present, on the quiz in My quizzes or in the editor, or on a selection.
In OIDC mode, if the instance allows open access, a Participant access dialog asks how participants join:
- Accounts required: each participant signs in. Personal tracking stays available.
- Open access: the PIN and a nickname are enough, no account. No personal tracking.
Tick Remember my choice to skip the question next time; change it later in My account, under Participant access at launch. The choice holds for as long as the room is open. Whether open access is allowed at all is an instance setting: ask whoever runs your instance (see Settings).
The console opens on the lobby, with the room’s PIN and the invitation in its centre. Invite the players and open the Projection window on the big screen, or pair a screen on another computer.

A quiz can be played in several rooms at the same time.

The console

The top of the console holds two rows, and the transport on the right:

First row: the room’s name and its quiz, the PIN, the number of players (it opens Players), the phase, and the views Console, Projection and Participant. In the lobby, the invitation fills the centre; once the quiz has started, choose the PIN to open it again.
Second row: Open to newcomers (or Closed to newcomers), Room sound, Animations, and at its end Projection window.
Transport: Autoplay and Pause, then Change quiz in the lobby or Stop the quiz… during a quiz, and Close the room.

Beside the current step, a column has two tabs: Outline, every step of the quiz, and Players. The bar at the bottom holds the action that moves on: Start the quiz, Reveal answer, Show the standings, Show Q{n}, Show the slide or Show the podium.

Before starting

The lobby’s Before starting section is fixed once the quiz starts. It has two tabs.

Data:

Record all answers: keeps each player’s answer details, for individual tracking. Off by default. Players are told at the start. Turning it on keeps every answer with its nickname, which is personal data: tell the participants before you play.
Personalised tracking: on by default. On, results are recorded under each participant (archived leaderboard, history). Off, no individual result is kept, only the group’s overall results. Unavailable in open access.
Let participants pick their display name, in OIDC mode with accounts: off means the name shown comes from their account. Either way their results stay attached to the account: a chosen name is not anonymity.
In OIDC mode, a note recalls how participants join: Accounts required or Open access.

For a quiz another host shares, Record all answers and Personalised tracking are greyed: “Another host’s quiz, presented as it is: nothing of it is kept.” See Templates and community.

Screens and sound:

Who hears the sound in this quiz: replaces the quiz’s setting for this room. Questions with their own setting keep it.
Language of the screens: the language of the projection, and of every phone whose player has not picked their own, for the whole room. Each quiz’s language (the default) follows the quiz being played; a language picked here holds for every quiz of the room, so a language class can play an English quiz with the interface in its own. The console’s Projection and Participant views show the screens in that language; the rest of your console stays in your own interface language.
A note on the media sent ahead: the participants’ devices receive the next question’s image, sound or video a few seconds before it appears, never its text nor its answers.

Players see a notice on their phone that matches these choices, such as “Your individual results are not recorded — only the group’s overall results are.”

You can also:

Rename the room, in the lobby only (blank gives “{host}’s room”);
Close the room to new participants: nobody else can join, even with the PIN; those already in come back after a lost connection. This also works during the game;
turn Animations off for a slow projector;
set the room sound; see Sound and projection.

The lobby counts the players and who is ready (“Ready: 18 / 20 participants”). Start the quiz needs at least one player; wait until most are connected.

Run the game

Each question opens on every device at the same time, after a short reading time (3 seconds by default, an instance setting). During the reading time the answers are not open yet: the clock stands at the question’s time, in red, and the time bar runs red stripes. The clock starts counting when the answers open. The server keeps the clock: it opens and closes the answers, and the question closes as soon as every connected player has answered.

Autoplay, a switch: off, you move on yourself; on, the game moves on by itself after each result. The answer stays on screen for the question’s Answer shown for, the standings for the instance’s time (5 seconds by default).
Pause and Resume, also with the Space key. The clock stands still while paused, and the screens say Paused: “The clock stands still”. The projection does not dim the question.
Reveal answer closes the question early.
After the reveal, Show the standings shows the quiz’s leaderboard on every screen; the next action then moves on. There is no standings step after the last question, nor after a poll.
−5, −1, +1, +5 seconds adjust the time left during a question.
The console’s answer key is for you only.

When a question’s media is still loading on some devices, the console waits for them and shows which ones are late; Start anyway goes on without them. The wait is limited (10 seconds by default).

Look back at a played step

Between steps, or during a question you paused, you can show a played step again on every screen, read-only: nothing is replayed, no points change, and answers are refused meanwhile. In Outline, use the arrows (Look back at the previous step, Look at the next played step) or choose a played step in the list. Back to live returns. From a paused question, Resume also brings the question back and runs its clock again.

Players and live standings

The Players tab lists the participants as live standings:

Column	What it shows
#	The rank: in this quiz once someone has scored, in arrival order before.
Participant	The avatar and the nickname.
Ready (✓)	In the lobby, whether the participant is ready. Before a question with media, whether their device has loaded it.
Remote (wifi)	Whether the participant plays remotely (“Participating remotely”).
Quiz	The score in this quiz.
Total	The score in the room, over its quizzes.

Click a column’s header to sort by it, and again to reverse the order. In the lobby, a ready participant’s avatar is ringed green. A remote participant’s avatar carries a wifi badge, on the console and on the projection’s lobby, standings and podium.

To remove a player, choose Ban {nickname} on their row. The ban lasts from 1 to 1440 minutes, 5 by default; the player cannot come back with that nickname for that time.

Several quizzes in one room

A room can play several quizzes in a row. The participants stay in it, and nobody types the PIN again. To prepare the list beforehand, make a selection: the lobby then picks each next quiz on its own.

At the podium, Back to the lobby takes the room back to its lobby. Archive this quiz’s results is ticked by default.
During a quiz, Stop the quiz… stops it here and takes the room back to its lobby. Keep what was played so far is ticked by default: the quiz is archived as interrupted and counted in the room’s standings.
In the lobby, before the quiz starts, Change quiz replaces the quiz picked.

For a quiz another host shares, neither box is offered: nothing of it is kept.

Back in its lobby, the room shows its standings so far, and the console offers Choose the quiz. The picker lists your ready quizzes, and the quizzes other hosts share, marked “by {name}, nothing kept”; once the room has played one, Played in this room filters them (All quizzes, Not played yet, Already played). Open this quiz brings it into the room’s lobby.

The next quiz starts on its own: after 30 seconds (“Starts in 30 s”, on the console and on the projection), or as soon as every connected participant is ready. Stop the countdown stops it; the quiz then waits for Start the quiz. Meanwhile the projection shows the invitation and, beside it, the room’s standings. On the phones, the feedback card of the lobby is about the quiz just played: “Your feedback on the previous quiz”.

Each quiz scores from zero; Room standings and the Room podium add the quizzes up.

Close the room

Close the room ends it for good: the PIN is invalidated and the participants are disconnected. During a quiz or at the podium, Archive this quiz’s results is ticked by default: the leaderboard and statistics then stay available in History.

My quizzes lists your Open rooms, with Resume to go back to the console and Close the room… to end one.

If you lose the connection

Close the console by accident, or lose the network, and the game waits for you. After 5 seconds the quiz pauses (“Quiz paused — host disconnected.”) and the players see “Waiting for the host…”. Come back within 2 minutes, with Resume in Open rooms, and the game picks up with the time that was left. After 2 minutes the room ends, and what was played is archived as Interrupted.

Questions

How many players can join a room?

QuizDock sets no cap on players per room. The limit is the server’s: in a load test on 2026-09-27 (backend on one 2.1 GHz core, simulated players on the same machine over loopback, no media), one room of 1500 players kept every answer. See Real-time for the conditions and the numbers.

Can I change “Record all answers” once the quiz has started?

No. The options under Before starting are fixed once the quiz starts.

Can players join after the start?

Yes, unless you choose Close the room to new participants. A player who joins late has no points for the questions already played.