A property trading game works on a phone if you check four things before you send the invite: which layout your screen will get, whether your lock screen can cost you a seat, how long you want the game to run, and whether a second device has seen the table first. None of the four takes more than a few minutes. The reason to do them first is that a table of friends waiting in a lobby is not the moment to find out your phone locked itself.
Which layout your screen gets
Property Rush, an independent Monopoly alternative, switches to a phone layout by the shape of the window, not by the make of the device. A phone held upright gets it, and so can a tablet held upright; a phone on its side usually gets the wider layout instead.
On the phone layout the chat becomes a bubble you can drag, and properties, trades, chat and the menu open as sheets. I read all of this from the code, not from a handset, so check it on your own device.
The idle clock and a locked screen
Turns in Property Rush have no countdown, because a trade or an auction deserves thought. The only clock is for a player who has stopped moving. Once the player on turn has been silent for 30 seconds, a countdown of two minutes appears. Any move they make puts it away again. If it runs out, the player leaves the table, so a stretch of 150 seconds with no move is the limit.
The deadline is stored with the game, not on your phone. A locked screen does not pause it, and any player's browser can call time once it passes. So the check is simple: look at your phone's auto-lock setting. A locked screen hides the countdown, and only a move puts it away, so set the lock to a time longer than your longest think.
How long you want the game to run
The game lists about 45 minutes and seats two to six. There is no round limit, so a game ends with one player standing. The host cannot shorten it with a counter. What the host can do is choose the starting purse, one of five options from $500 up to $5,000 with $1,500 as the default. A smaller purse makes money tight sooner, and a shorter evening follows.
For a game on commuter-length breaks, I would start at the low end of the purse choices. The rules are frozen when the game starts, so the decision belongs before the first invite.
The purse and the other house rules are set in the lobby of Boardit's Property Rush, before anyone is asked to sit down.
Run a two-device dry run
You need at least two players to start. If you have a second device, join the table from it as a second guest: guests join with a name and no account, so it should take a minute. Go round the board once. Check that a purchase decision, a trade offer and the chat can all be reached with a thumb.
Do this once, before the real invite. Then leave the table on the second device and send the invite to the people you meant to play with.
Can you play Property Rush online with friends on a phone?
Yes. Property Rush is a free property trading game that runs in a phone's browser with nothing to install, at tables of two to six. Guests join a table with a name, not an account. The board has 22 cities in eight countries, and everyone sees the same board live. Before inviting, check your layout, your lock screen and the purse.
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Ahmed Moaz builds Boardit, a free browser game site.