How to Play

A table that never slows down

Friction Floor is a free party game that runs in the browser — nothing to install. A laptop or TV shows an air-hockey table seen from above. Everyone joins with their phone, and each phone becomes a thruster.

Here is the thing that catches everyone out: tilting does not steer you, it pushes you. The table has no friction, so once you are moving you stay moving until a wall or another player says otherwise. Stopping is something you have to plan — tilt the other way, early, and hope you judged it.

Every other tilt game bleeds your speed away for you. This one never does.

Ready in 30 seconds

1. Open the game on the biggest screen you have — a TV's browser, a laptop, or a projector: that is the host screen.
2. Everyone else points their phone camera at the QR code on the screen — it opens the controller with the arena code already filled in.
3. Type a name, tap JOIN. iPhones will ask for motion access — allow it, that is the tilt sensor.
4. The host picks CO-OP or VERSUS. Six phones fit on one table.

Hold the phone flat, like a tray. Both directions matter here — tilt left and right, and tilt away from you and toward you. The pad on your screen shows which way you are pushing and how hard.

The controller turns sideways when a round starts and stays that way between rounds, so the direction you are pushing never moves under you. If your phone will not turn, the 📱 AUTO button in the corner lets you say which way round you are holding it.

Play it with your hands instead

If nobody has a phone to spare, a webcam will do. On the host screen, switch PHONES to HANDS at the top, and allow the camera when the browser asks. There is no QR code and nothing to join — the screen with the camera on it is the whole setup.

1. Hold a fist. Your hand pushes, exactly as the phone did — it never steers. The disc keeps whatever it already had and your push is added to it.
2. Open your hand for the bumper, the one charge that shoves whatever is next to you.
3. Straight ahead is re-taken when a round starts, so wherever your hand is when the whistle goes counts as no push at all.

A small preview appears in the corner. It puts a ring on the hand it is following and a cross where straight ahead is, so you can see both that the camera has you and which way it thinks you are leaning.

Because the floor has no friction worth the name, a hand that drifts is a disc that never stops accelerating. Coming back to the middle is a real move here, not a rest.

Co-op by camera is one player. One camera follows one hand — put your other hand down or it will simply be ignored, marked with a faint dot in the preview. VERSUS is two, one each side of the picture. Hand games keep their own leaderboard, so they are never ranked against a room of phones.

Two ways to use a frictionless table

CO-OP One puck, everybody pushing

The whole room drives a single puck by the average of everyone's tilt, shoving loose discs into the goal mouths before the clock runs out. The dashed ring on your pad is where the room as a whole is pushing — if it is nowhere near your own knob, that is why the puck is not going where you want. Braking is a group decision, and it has to be made early.

The discs are loose too, and they are lighter than you. Line one up and drive it in and it will barge every disc it passes on the way, so a good shot is also the thing that scatters your next one. Clear the table and a fresh set slides on — the clock is the only thing that ends a round, so the score has no ceiling.

The mouths are slotted: a disc fits, your puck does not. Lean on one all you like, it will just bounce you.

Halfway through the round, a gold disc arrives. It is worth ten, and it is only there for ten seconds — the ring around it empties as the clock runs down, and when the ring is gone so is the disc. It is lighter and slipperier than everything else on the table, so it skids off the line if you hit it even slightly too hard. Missing it costs you nothing except the ten points you did not get.

VERSUS Same table, same clock, most points wins

2–6 players, a puck each, all on one table, and the same discs to post. A disc you send through a mouth is worth 1. Sending a rival through one is worth 5 — and the gold disc is worth ten to whoever gets it there, which is the one moment everybody wants the same thing.

Nobody is knocked out. Go through a mouth yourself and you sit in the bin for five seconds, then come back on at the quietest corner of the table. It costs you the five seconds and nothing else, so the player in last place is still playing, and the round always runs the full clock.

Which means your own momentum is both weapon and liability. Build speed, pick someone, arrive heavy — and remember you cannot stop any faster than they can, so a shove that misses usually posts you.

There are no grates on the mouths in versus. A disc fits and so do you: that is the entire point.

One card, two ways to spend it

Versus gives every phone a single charge, and two buttons to spend it on. 💥 SLAM is a hard shove along the way you are already leaning — the timed hit this table otherwise never lets you make.

🛡 BUMPER is the other one, and it does nothing when you press it. It arms, and then it waits. The next hard hit that lands on you is simply absorbed — you do not move — and whoever threw it is flung back off you, faster than they came in, along a line they do not get to choose.

Nobody can see it. Not the table, not the watch page, not the other phones. So every attack on this table is a gamble: the puck you are lining up either goes where you aimed it, or throws you across the floor and possibly into a mouth of your own. A bumper you never spend still spent the whole round making people hesitate.

And if it is not up, the hit does exactly what your attacker intended — you go down their line, and the only things that can save you are another puck or a loose disc in the way.

They share the one charge, so using either spends both. Attacking costs you your protection and protecting costs you your shot, which is the whole decision. Everyone gets a second charge when the gold disc lands, so both of them tend to go off in the same ten seconds.

A slam with no lean behind it does nothing and keeps your charge — you cannot waste it by pressing at the wrong moment. A bumper cannot be wasted either: a gentle nudge will not trip it, and it keeps waiting.

What your phone is telling you

• The knob sits where you are pushing. Centre means you are coasting — which is not the same as stopping.
• The spoke from the middle grows with how hard you are pushing.
• The dashed ring is the room's average, in co-op only.
• The speed bar is the one thing you cannot feel through the glass. When it turns red and says TOO FAST TO STOP, it means exactly that — start braking before you need to.
• The pad is not a map. It shows the push, not the puck. Watch the big screen for where you actually are.

Advice from the wall

• Push in taps, not holds. A long tilt is a commitment you cannot take back.
• To stop, aim your push at where you are going, not where you want to be.
• Walls are free speed if you hit them at an angle. They are also the fastest way to end up somewhere you did not choose.
• In versus, the goal behind you matters more than the one in front. Most people go out backwards.
• In co-op, agree who calls the brake before the round starts. Six people braking at different moments is the same as nobody braking.
• Hitting someone costs you speed too. A shove you do not follow through leaves you sitting still next to an angry puck.

Friends elsewhere can play too

The host's 📨 INVITE FRIENDS button copies one link, and the link works out what to do with itself. Opened on a computer it mirrors the table live, about a tenth of a second behind. Opened on a phone it explains the missing half: a phone cannot be the arena, so it offers to pass the link to a TV or laptop and then scan the QR that screen puts up.

Small print, big font

My phone doesn't push anything.

iPhones need the motion permission — it's asked when you tap JOIN. If you declined it, close the tab, reopen, and allow. Both phones and the game need HTTPS, which this site always uses.

Do I hold the phone sideways?

No. Portrait, flat, thumb in the middle. This game reads both tilt axes, so turning the phone would only rotate your controls.

How many can play?

Six phones per arena, in either mode: co-op puts all six on one puck, versus gives each their own. Watchers: 5 per arena.

I keep flying into my own goal.

Everyone does at first. The table gives nothing back — start your brake about twice as early as feels right and it starts to click.

Does it cost anything?

No. It's a free browser game. If it made your evening better, there's a ❤️ button on the host screen.