Buzzer

Settling who was first

Every quiz night reaches the same argument: two people shout at the same time and the room splits over which of them was first. A buzzer settles it because the screen is not on anybody's side. The first press after the round is armed takes it, everything after that is refused, and the winner is shown with the time it took.

Arming matters as much as the press. Read the question, arm the round when you finish reading, and a team that jumps in early is out for that round rather than rewarded for guessing when you would stop talking. If that is too strict for your table, turn it off and an early press just does nothing.

A tablet in the middle, or a key each

Zones are for a tablet or a phone on the table: the screen splits into two to eight coloured blocks, everybody keeps a finger over their own, and the first finger down wins. It is the closest thing to a real buzzer box that does not need a box.

Keys are for a laptop. Each player is given a key at opposite ends of the keyboard, shown on their own zone, and the same rule applies to the first key down. Name everybody in the Players tab and the zones take their names, which comes from the same roster the deck shuffler and the lives tracker read.

Running the quiz around it

The buzzer keeps a tally of who won each round, which is enough for a short game. For a full quiz night put the scoreboard on a second screen or take the points across at the end of each round, and use the countdown timer for the thinking time after somebody buzzes in.

The screen stays awake while a round is armed, so a tablet sitting on the table does not dim at the moment it matters. Each buzzer has its own pitch, and the winner is named on screen at the same time, so the room can hear it and read it.

Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for

The tool runs entirely in your browser. There is no account, nothing you make is uploaded, and nothing you type is sent anywhere or put into a link.

The page itself is not silent, though: it carries advertising code and a visit counter that sets no cookie, and the cookie page says exactly what each of those does.

It works on the one device in front of you, passed around or propped where everybody can see it. There are no rooms, no codes and no accounts, because there is no server behind this site for any of that to run through.

This page remembers your settings in your browser under pph.buzzer.mode, pph.buzzer.zones, pph.buzzer.falsestart and pph.buzzer.muted, and nowhere else. Clearing your site data for papercarnival.com removes it.

Player names are kept under pph.players so every tool with players reads the same list. They stay in this browser and never reach a link.