How to run game sound from your phone
Where every control sits in the phone layout, whether sound survives a locked screen, the iPhone first-tap rule, and what an account actually buys you.
Build your environments, boards and scenes on a laptop, sign in with an email link, and they are on the phone when you sit down. Add Thaumaturgy to the home screen, or install it from Google Play, so it keeps playing when you switch apps. Pair the Bluetooth speaker beforehand, and bring a cable.
Build the scenes before you leave home
Build your environments and boards on whatever screen is comfortable, sign in with an email link, and they are on the phone when you sit down. Sync pushes a change a moment after you make it and the top bar says synced, syncing… or offline. The phone is for running the game, not building it.
Open it as an app, not a tab
Add Thaumaturgy to your home screen — or install it from Google Play — so it opens without browser chrome and keeps playing when you switch away to look something up.
Deal with Bluetooth before the session
Pair the speaker first and play something through it before anyone arrives. Bluetooth adds a fraction of a second of delay, which is invisible for ambience and noticeable for a sound effect you meant to land on a word.
Keep it plugged in
Continuous audio with the screen on will drain a phone over a four-hour session. Bring a cable.
Learn where Stop is
One control kills everything. On a phone it is the last segment of the bar along the bottom of the screen, beside the screen switcher, so it never scrolls away and you never have to hunt for silence.
Where is everything on a phone?
The phone layout is not the desktop one shrunk. The top bar's controls move to a More screen, and the screen switcher moves to the bottom where your thumb is:
| What | Where it is on a phone |
|---|---|
| Screens | The bar along the bottom: Play, Environments, Boards, More |
| Stop | The last segment of that same bar |
| Scenes | The strip across the top of the Play screen |
| A layer's dials | Tap the layer's chip under the environment name |
| Master volume | More → Sound |
| Play online | More → Play online, at the top of the More screen |
| Account | More → Account |
Does it keep playing with the screen off?
Yes. Sound continues when the screen locks or you switch to another app, and the phone's own lock-screen controls can pause and resume it.
Why does nothing play on my iPhone until I tap?
Safari will not start audio until you have touched the page once — that is an iOS rule, not a setting. Press PLAY, a scene, or any board button once after opening, and everything behaves normally from then on.
Do I need an account to run it from a phone?
Only to carry your work between devices. Everything works signed out, saved in that browser — but the environments and boards you built on a laptop get to the phone by syncing, so that is what the account is for. Campaigns and broadcasting need one too.
Next
Ready? Open Thaumaturgy — it is free, and there is nothing to install.
Updated 10 November 2026