The idea: one table, many hands
In Gather, a big screen acts as the game table. That can be an Apple TV, an iPad or a Mac, which can open its own window for a connected TV or projector. Everyone sees the board, the leaderboard or the drawing there. Each player holds their own phone and sees only what they need.
That is what makes many games possible in the first place. In Village at Night your secret role is only on your phone, in Little Max only you see your dice, and in the card games your hand stays private. The phone also changes with the game: in Corner Chaos you hold it sideways and steer like a wheel, in Sketch Round you draw on it, in Quiz Night it shows four big answer buttons, and in Chess you tap a piece and then its target square.
Joining with the app or a browser
When you pick a game on the game table, a QR code and a short room code appear. Anyone with Gather on their iPhone joins with the room code or scans the QR code with the scanner in the app. Everyone else simply points their phone camera at the QR code and opens the link. The game then runs in the browser, with no install and no account. That even works on phones that Gather has no app for.
Once everyone has joined and marked themselves ready, the game starts. You can read the rules for every game in the app beforehand. On Apple TV, paired game controllers can also join in Corner Chaos.
How the phones connect
The device showing the game table is the host itself, and that's where the game runs. On the same Wi-Fi, phones connect to it directly, with no internet and no server. If the game table is online, it also registers its room with our relay server at gathergames.de, and the QR code then goes through gathergames.de. That way, people who aren't on the same Wi-Fi can join too, over mobile data for example. The server only passes messages along and stores nothing permanently.
For your privacy, that means no account, no sign-in, no ads and no tracking. Your profile is just a name and an animal avatar. In the browser, the phone remembers your name, avatar and a reconnect key, nothing else. The camera is only used to read the QR code, and images are never stored or sent.
When a phone can't join
Check the Wi-Fi first. Is the phone really on the same network as the game table, or has it switched to mobile data because the signal is weak? A range extender or a second network with its own name can also be a separate network. From another network or over mobile data, joining only works through gathergames.de, and for that the game table has to be online.
Guest networks are the most common culprit. Many routers keep devices on the guest network apart from each other, which is called client isolation. Phone and TV then can't see each other even though both are online. Move all devices to the main network or turn off isolation in your router settings. An active VPN on someone's phone can get in the way too.
On first launch, Gather asks for access to the local network. Without it, devices can't find each other. If you declined by accident, you'll find the switch on iPhone under Settings, Privacy & Security, Local Network.
When the connection drops
A game only runs while Gather is open on the game table. If someone switches to another app on Apple TV, the system pauses Gather and the phones lose their connection. They reconnect as soon as Gather is back in front, as long as the app wasn't closed. So it's best to put the remote aside while you play.
If a single phone drops out, for example because its screen locked, just open the game again. In the browser, reloading the page helps, and the saved key gets you back into your seat.