Draw and Guess dev log: keeping a drawing game in sync on a bad connection

A drawing game lives or dies on sync. In Draw and Guess every stroke goes to the other players as it is drawn, and on a weak phone signal it was possible to miss an update and sit on a round that had already moved on.

The fix: every tick of the round clock now re-reads the board, so a player who missed something catches up on the next tick. The drawer's word choice also keeps asking until it gets through, instead of trying once.

Also this month:

• Guesses, chat and names pass through a swear-word filter that masks words with dots rather than blocking the message, and leaves the game's own words alone.
• On a phone turned sideways, the round's points go two to a line so none runs off the result card.
• The result sits under the top bar, so Leave and sound stay within reach.

2 to 12 players, guess sooner to score more, and the host can bring a word list of their own. It also plays at playboardit.com.