Support

Questions about Slate Night? The answers are below. If you're still stuck, email us; we read every message.

Getting started

What do I need?: An iPhone with iOS 27 or later, and some friends or family in the same room. Slate Night is designed for iPhone Duo, and it plays on every other iPhone with an on-screen clapstick.
How do I play?: Split into 2 to 4 teams. On your team's turn, the actor reads a secret scene, such as "A penguin trying to fly", claps the slate to start the take, and mimes the scene while their own team guesses. A player from another team, the director, taps GOT IT! when the actor nods at a right guess. Then the phone is opened to call Cut, the scene is revealed, the points are added up, and the phone goes to the next team.
Who is the director?: Anyone from another team. They hold the closed phone up to the room (or prop it up) during the take, tap GOT IT! for a right guess, and call "Cut!" by opening the phone.
How long is a game?: You choose in setup: 2 to 4 teams; a Length of Short (3 scenes per team), Standard (4) or Long (5); and a Timer of 45, 60 or 90 seconds per scene (60 to start with).
Does it cost anything inside the app?: No. There are no in-app purchases, ads or subscriptions, and no account.

One scene, step by step

The open phone shows which team's actor is up. The actor takes the phone and taps It's me. The scene card flips up for 6 seconds; tap again to re-read it as often as you like.
Close the phone: clap, Action! The outer display becomes the slate, with the roll, scene and take numbers and the countdown. Hold it up so the room can see it, and start miming.
The director taps GOT IT! when someone guesses right ("PRINT IT!"), or the time runs out ("THAT'S TIME").
Open the phone: Cut! The scene is revealed to everyone and the points chalk in. If the result is wrong, fix it with Got it or Missed. Then tap Next scene and pass the open phone on.

On iPhones without a hinge, step 2 is dragging the clapstick down and step 4 is tapping Cut. See Playing on other iPhones.

Folding on iPhone Duo

The halves of the phone are the two sticks of a clapperboard. There are two folds per scene, close to start and open to stop, and you never have to fold fast, fold hard or hold a pose.

Pose	What it does in Slate Night
Open (inner display, held wide or tall)	The script desk: reading your secret scene, the reveal after Cut, setup, scores and awards.
Partly folded (book or laptop)	The same as open. Folding partway hides the script from the people around you, and the drawn clapsticks follow the hinge. It never starts the take.
Closed (outer display)	Closing after the actor has read the scene is the clap: Action! The outer display is the public slate with the countdown and GOT IT!.
Tent	Not used. You never need it.

What's a blooper?: Opening the phone while the take is still rolling. The film snaps, a slide whistle plays and the take is struck through, and the clock keeps running. Close the phone again for a retake (TAKE 2, using one of the production's two spare reels), or tap Cut to give up the scene. The two spare reels are shared by all the teams for the whole production.
I closed the phone and only heard a thunk.: The take starts only after the actor has read the scene. Open the phone, tap It's me, read the card, then close it. If the slate says "Out of film!", both spare reels are used up; open the phone to cut the scene.
Does it matter how fast I fold?: No. Slate Night only cares whether the phone is closed or open. A slow close and a fast close do exactly the same thing and make the same sound.
Can I play on iPhone Duo without folding?: Yes. In Settings, set the slate mode to On-screen to use the on-screen clapstick instead of the hinge, for example when you're playing one-handed or with Switch Control.

Playing on other iPhones

My iPhone doesn't fold. Can I still play?: Yes. It's the same game, with the same rules, decks and scoring. The striped clapstick at the top of the screen stands in for the hinge.
How do I clap the slate?: Drag the clapstick down and let go near the bottom of its swing; a shorter drag springs back. If dragging is hard, use the Clap button instead (with VoiceOver, the "Clap the slate" action).
How do I call Cut?: Tap Cut, the smaller button in the top corner of the slate. Tapping Cut while the take is still rolling is a blooper, just like opening an iPhone Duo too soon. For a retake, drag the clapstick again.
How does the actor keep the scene secret?: The same way: tap It's me, read the card, clap the slate, then turn the phone round to face the room.

Decks and scenes

What decks are there?: 280 scenes in 7 decks of 40: Everyday Mishaps; Creature Feature; Odd Jobs; Kitchen Calamities; Once Upon a Time; Lights, Camera; and Little Stars, which has short, easy scenes for younger players.
Which decks are on at the start?: Mixed Reel: every deck except Little Stars. Turn decks on or off in Decks during setup. At least one deck has to stay on.
Will we see the same scenes again?: Not until a deck runs out. Slate Night remembers which scenes you've played, so they don't repeat from one production to the next.
Do we need to know films or celebrities?: No. Every scene is a funny situation to act out, with no named people, characters, films, shows, brands or places.
Can we write our own scenes?: Yes, in the Writers' Room: up to 60 of your own scenes, each up to 48 characters. Once it has 5 or more, the Writers' Room shows up as a deck. Your scenes stay on your iPhone.

Scoring and awards

How are points scored?: A scene guessed in the first third of the timer scores 3 points, in the middle third 2, and in the last third 1. With the 60-second timer, that's 3 points within 20 seconds and 2 within 40. A retake (TAKE 2 or later) scores 1 point less, but never less than 1.
What if we guessed it right as the time ran out?: At Cut, change the result to Got it for 1 point. A missed scene or a scene cut after a blooper scores 0.
Does pausing count against us?: No, paused time isn't counted. Time spent on a blooper is, because the clock keeps running.
Who wins?: The team with the most points. Ties share the win.
What happens at the end?: That's a wrap: a blooper reel of silent-film title cards (every blooper, every nail-biter and the fastest print; swipe to skip), then up to 5 of the 7 awards: Best Picture, Blooper of the Night, Fastest Print, Nail-Biter, One-Take Wonder, Method Acting and Clean Set. Each production is kept as a poster in your filmography (the last 24).
What are slate finishes?: New looks for the slate that you earn by finishing productions: Classic to begin with, then Schoolroom Green (1 wrap), Walnut (3), Tungsten (6) and Premiere Gold (10). They're only for looks, and they're never sold.

Calls, pauses and interruptions

What if the phone rings or we leave the app during a take?: The take pauses and the clock stops. Folding the phone while you're away never counts as a clap or a blooper. When you come back, tap Resume if the phone is closed, or close the phone if it's open, to carry on with the same take. Pulling down Notification Centre or Control Centre for under a second doesn't pause the game.
What if the app closes in the middle of a game?: The next time you open Slate Night, choose Continue to go back to the paused take, Wrap it to end the production, or Scrap to throw it away.
Why doesn't the screen dim during a long mime?: Slate Night keeps the screen awake while a production is running. Normal auto-lock comes back when the production wraps or you leave the app.

Sound and haptics

In Slate Night's Settings, you can turn Sounds and Haptics on or off, choose the slate mode (Hinge or On-screen), and reset your progress. Haptics also follow your iPhone's own System Haptics setting.

I can't hear the clap.: Slate Night stays quiet when your iPhone is in Silent Mode. To hear it anyway, turn on Play sounds in Silent Mode in Settings. Every sound also has something to see on screen, so the game plays fine without sound.

Accessibility

VoiceOver: every control is labelled. Revealing the scene reads it aloud, so the actor should use an earbud. With VoiceOver on, the scene card stays up until you turn it over, the countdown is announced at 30 seconds, 10 seconds and 5 to 1, Action, Print, Time, Blooper and Cut are announced, and the blooper reel doesn't advance by itself.
Reduce Motion: swings, wobbles, confetti, flicker and card flips are replaced with crossfades and still stamps.
No flashing: nothing flashes more than 3 times a second.
Text size: menus, settings, the Writers' Room, the scoreboard and the filmography follow your text size, up to the largest accessibility sizes. The scene card grows with it, too.
Colour: every team has a colour and a shape (circle, triangle, square or star), so you never need to tell colours apart.
Hearing: every sound has a visual cue.
Switch Control and one hand: every action is a button, the in-game controls sit in the lower half of the screen or on the right-hand page, and the on-screen slate mode needs no folding.

Progress, backups and a new iPhone

Where is my progress saved?: On your iPhone, inside Slate Night: your filmography, earned slate finishes, which scenes you've played, your Writers' Room scenes and your settings. It isn't synced between devices.
Will it move to a new iPhone?: Yes, if you restore your iPhone or iCloud backup to the new iPhone. App data is included in your own backups. We never receive it.

Starting over

In Slate Night, open Settings and choose Reset progress. Deleting the app also deletes everything it saved on this iPhone.

Privacy

Slate Night collects no data: no account, no network, no analytics, no ads and no tracking. Read the privacy policy.

Contact

Email s.java.junk@gmail.com. To help us answer quickly, please include your iPhone model, your iOS version, your Slate Night version (iPhone Settings › General › iPhone Storage › Slate Night), whether the phone was open, partly folded or closed, what you did, and a screenshot if you can.