📺 TV and Games Night

What it is

Every TV in the city is a Halcyon smart TV. Pick up the remote and you get a channel guide, live channels, the radio, a queue of web videos everyone in the room can add to, reactions and a vote to skip. The same TV runs Games Night, a set of party games that everyone in the room plays at once on their own phone-style controller, and it takes a Quasar Q1 games console on one of its inputs for four-player games on the sofa.

TVs belong to properties. Furniture TVs switch themselves on, owners can aim bigger wall screens, and mansions have a cinema with seat-aware sound, dimmed lights and a schedule of showings.

How to start

Stand next to a TV and press E, or type /tv, to pick up its remote. Escape puts it down again.

For a console, buy a Quasar Q1 at DIY Depot (see The Quasar Q1 below) and set it up next to your TV.

Step by step

1. Pick up the remote

   Press E at the TV or type /tv. The remote appears on the side of your screen. Arrows, Enter and Backspace work as well as the mouse.

2. Turn it on and choose an input

   Power turns the TV on. Input switches between the TV itself and the AV inputs where a console can be plugged in.

3. Open the guide

   Guide lists every channel with its number and what is on. Pick one, or type a number with CH up and down.

4. Cast something

   The Cast tab takes a link. Paste an https link to a web video page or a live channel and press Add to queue, or Play now if you can control the TV.

5. Watch together

   Everyone near the TV sees the same picture. Use reactions, vote to skip something nobody wants, and report anything that should not be on.

6. Put it down

   Press Escape or Put the remote down. The TV carries on playing. If nobody is watching it drops into standby after the time the owner has set.

The remote

The Me tab holds your own preferences: your TV volume, where the remote sits and how big it is, screen quality (Auto or Low), whether reactions show on screens and whether the lights dim for you in cinemas.

Casting and the queue

Casting takes https links to web video pages and share links, and to live channels and past broadcasts. Links that do not start with https are refused. Everything goes into one queue for that TV: Now playing, then Up next, with the name of whoever added each item. People who can control the TV can play, pause, move, remove and clear. Guests can queue up to three videos at a time.

Channels

Channels 40 to 50 are data channels: pages of live city information that update by themselves.

From channel 100 upwards the TV plays the radio stations from the station directory, one per channel. See Radio and settings.

Who can use the remote

The owner of a TV chooses who can change what is on, in the TV's Settings:

Anyone else can still pick up the remote to see what is on, react and vote to skip, and a guest can add to the queue. The same Settings tab names the TV, sets the standby time for when nobody is watching (never, or after 10, 20, 30, 60, 120 or 240 minutes) and nudges the picture so it sits inside the frame.

Games Night

Games Night turns the TV into a party game. The game shows on the big screen; each player gets their own controller on their own screen, like a phone, so answers and drawings stay private until the reveal.

1. Open a lobby

   Someone with the remote opens Games Night from Home and picks a game. The TV shows a four letter join code.

2. Join

   Join from your own TV remote, or type /tvjoin <CODE> with the code on screen. You must be within 20 m of the TV to join, and stay within 30 m to play.

3. Play

   The host presses Start game. Your controller pops up when it is your move. F10 hides it or brings it back; that key can be changed in your keybinds as Open Games Night.

4. Watch

   If the game is full or has already started, you can watch until the next one.

The Quasar Q1

The Quasar Q1 is a games console for your living room. It is sold at DIY Depot in the Electronics aisle: the console for $1,800, extra Quasar Pad controllers for $180.

1. Inside a property, use the Quasar Q1 from your inventory and place it next to your TV. It plugs itself into a free AV input on the TV and tells you which one. If it cannot, use /console connect near the TV, or Connect a device on the remote.

2. Switch the TV to that AV input with the remote.

3. Press E on the console to pick up a controller. Hold Back for a second to put it down.

The console comes with two controllers. To pair more, use a Quasar Pad while standing next to your own console, up to four in all. The owner chooses who may pick up a controller: Residents or Everyone.

Profiles, achievements, Q-Score and high scores are saved on the console itself, so they come with it when you move it. /console pickup packs it away, /console rename <name> renames it, and if your pockets were full when it came back to you, /console retrieve collects it.

Cinema mode and mansion cinemas

Big screens have a Cinema mode in their Settings: sound that follows where you sit, and channel 7 becomes Showtime. With Lights down on, the room dims for people in their seats while a film plays.

Mansions have a cinema of their own. The owner aims the cinema screen with /mansioncinemascreen. Anyone who lives there can pick up the cinema remote with /mansioncinema, and /mansioncinemaoff turns the screen off.

Showtimes. The owner of a cinema screen can schedule showings from the Showtimes tab: a title of up to 80 characters, a video link, a date and a start time between 5 minutes and 14 days away, and up to 20 showings per screen. Times are city time. The Showtimes tab lists each showing as Scheduled, Showing now, Finished or Cancelled.

See also

• Properties and landlords for furnishing rights, residents and keys.

• Shops and fuel pumps for DIY Depot and the Electronics aisle.

• Weazel News for the stories on channel 1.

• Radio and settings for the station directory, the TV volume slider and keybinds.

• Default keys for F10 and the rest of the default keys.

Tips

Related commands

Worked example