Watch: Run the Night by Voice (3:08) · All videos
Before you start
Hold the talk button and speak, or type in the message box on the Live tab. Your cohosts act on what you ask only when AI Game Control is set to Yes (in Setup). With it off, they only talk, and you press every button.
Say it in your own words. The phrases below are examples, not a script, and the cohosts understand many other ways of asking. Use player and team names as they appear on the scoreboard. A game has to be set up first: the cohosts run what is in your Rundown, and they will tell you if a step did not work.
If the talk mode (Auto, Game or Chat, on the Live tab) is set to Chat, the cohosts treat what you say as conversation and leave the TV alone unless you clearly ask. Game mode leans towards doing what you say.
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| Hold to talk, or type | The two ways to give an instruction. Short and direct works best: “Next question.” |
Moving through the show
These work on any step. Your cohosts can also read your Rundown notes and say what is coming next.
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Go to the next step” / “Next” | Moves on to the next step in your Rundown, and the phones follow. |
| “Go back to the previous step” | Goes back one step. |
| “Start the trivia round” / “Go to the team step” | Jumps to a step by its name. |
| “Play the [reserve name]” / “Go back to the show” | Starts a reserve (a side game) without losing your place, and returns to it. |
| “Put the welcome screen on the TV” | Shows the welcome screen with the big join code. |
| “Show yourselves” | Puts the cohosts full screen on the TV. |
| “Move yourselves to the bottom right corner” / “Show us small” | Keeps the cohosts in a corner over whatever else is on the TV. Corner and size can be said either way. |
| “Take the corner picture away” | Removes the cohosts from the corner. |
Trivia
The questions come from the round you loaded. The cohosts read each question and its choices out loud, and never say the answer before the reveal.
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Ask the first question” / “Next question” | Puts the next question on the TV and the phones. |
| “Reveal the answer” | Shows the right answer and scores the phones. |
| “Go back a question” / “Ask that one again” | Goes back, or clears the question and asks it again (points it gave are taken back). |
| “Show the choices” / “Time is up” | In a player-bluff question: closes the fake answers and puts the real and fake choices up. |
| “Lock the answers” | Stops taking answers on the open question without revealing it. |
| “Close the answers” | In the all-questions-first format: closes everyone’s answers so the reveals can start. |
| “Give the Reds a point for that” | Gives a team the question’s points for an answer said out loud (phone answers score by themselves). |
Name that tune, picture round and price round
The cohosts never know the answer or the real price in advance, so they cannot give it away.
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Start the next song” / “Next picture” / “Next item” | Starts the next item, and the clock begins. |
| “Reveal it” / “Show the answer” | Ends the item now and shows the answer or the real price and the winner. |
Bingo and the wheel
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Call the next number” / “Call the next one” | Calls a random item that has not been called. |
| “Call B7” | Calls a specific number or item. |
| “Show the board” | Puts the bingo board on the TV. |
| “Spin the wheel” | Spins the wheel that is set up. The wheel decides where it lands, not the cohosts. |
| “Spin a wheel of pizza, tacos or sushi” | Makes a wheel from what you say and spins it. |
| “Turn elimination on” / “Take the last winner off the wheel” / “Put everyone back” | Wheel elimination: each winner comes off at the next spin; you can also remove one now or reset. |
| “Let Dana spin” / “Take the spin button back” | Gives one player a one-time Spin button on their phone, or withdraws it. |
Polls, closest number and written answers
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Close the vote” / “Show the results” | Stops a live poll and shows the final bars. |
| “Stop taking guesses” | Closes a closest-number question. |
| “Show every guess” | Shows all guesses, and who was closest when the real answer was set (the winner is awarded). |
| “The real answer is 50. Who was closest?” | Marks the closest guess from the number you give, then awards the points. |
| “Show the answers” / “Stop collecting answers” | Shows what players typed on the TV, or stops collecting. |
Buzzer and timer
The buzzer needs you to say who was right: the cohosts mark answers only when you name the player.
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Open the buzzers” | Arms the phones’ buzzers and clears the last round. |
| “Stop” / “Clear the list” / “Close the buzzers” | Freezes the buzz order, clears it, or turns the buzzers off. |
| “Sam was right” / “Sam was wrong” | Marks that player’s answer and moves their points. |
| “Start a 30 second timer” | A countdown on the TV. |
| “Start a stopwatch” | Counts up from 0:00. |
| “Pause the timer” / “Carry on” / “Add 10 seconds” / “Reset the timer” | Controls the timer on the TV. |
Scores and teams
Say the player or team the way it is written on the scoreboard.
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Give Dana 2 points” / “Take a point off Sam” | Changes one player’s score (and their team’s). |
| “Give the Reds 1 point” | Gives a team points outside a game. |
| “Set Sam to 10” | Sets a player to an exact score. |
| “Undo that” | Takes back the last score change. |
| “Show the scores” / “Next page of scores” | Puts the scoreboard on the TV and turns its pages. |
| “Show the winners” | Shows the winners’ podium. Say “by teams” to rank teams instead. |
| “Let people pick their team” | Opens team choosing on the phones. |
| “Put everyone who has not picked on a team” / “Mix up all the teams” | Fills teams evenly with the players who have no team, or deals everyone again (locked players stay). |
| “Move Sam to the Blues” / “Add a team called Greens” / “Remove the Greens” | Moves a player, adds a team, or deletes one. |
| “Close the teams” | Stops team changes. |
Drawing, photos, squares and queues
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Start a drawing round” / “Sam and Ana draw” | Draw & guess: starts a round with random drawers, or the ones you name. |
| “Reveal the word” / “Give them a new word” | Ends the round and shows the word, or swaps the word. |
| “Start the photo round” / “Move on to the voting” | Photo challenge: players take photos, then vote, then the results. |
| “Take Sam’s photo out” | Removes one player’s photo from the round. |
| “Open the photo showdown” / “Move on” | Photo showdown: photos in, choosing finalists, voting, results. |
| “Pick all the photos” / “Pick none” | Chooses every photo as a finalist, or clears the choice. |
| “Start It’s Sketchy” / “Move on to the next phase” | Deals everyone a secret prompt, and carries on through drawing, bluffing and voting. |
| “Skip Sam’s drawing” | Leaves out a drawing that is not suitable. |
| “Open the squares” / “Lock the squares” / “Draw the numbers” | Squares: lets players pick, stops picks, draws the hidden numbers. |
| “Enter the score, 17 to 10” / “Undo that result” | Enters the real score at the next checkpoint and names the winners, or takes it back. |
| “Next one” / “Skip this one” / “Play the song” | A queue: brings up the next singer or request, drops the one that is on, or plays the song of the one that is on. |
| “Pause the queue” / “Open the queue again” | Stops or starts taking new requests. |
| “Pause the wall” / “Open the wall again” | Stops or resumes reactions, messages and photos on the reaction wall. |
| “Put Welcome everyone on the wall” | Sends your own banner to the TV. |
| “Approve everything that is waiting” | Shows all waiting messages and photos on the wall. |
Cards, pictures and videos
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Show a break card for five minutes” | A full-screen card with a countdown. A rules card or a title card work the same way. |
| “Put the logo picture on the screen” | Shows one of your pictures full screen. |
| “Show a picture with the caption Thanks to our sponsor” | A picture with a caption, full screen. |
| “Play the intro video” / “Play it on a loop” | Plays one of your videos full screen. Add “and go back when it ends” to return to the previous screen. |
| “Pause the video” / “Carry on” / “Start it again” / “Stop the video” | Controls the video; stop ends it and goes back. |
| “Draw a banner at the top that says Welcome” / “Now make it gold” | The AI drawing screen: each request adds to or changes the drawing. “Undo” goes back a step and “start a blank drawing” clears it. |
Music, sound effects and the background
Thirty sound effects come with the app: ding, correct, wrong, buzzer, drumroll, cymbal, applause, tada, fanfare, whoosh, sad trombone, airhorn, tick, countdown beep, suspense, pop, crickets, rimshot, record scratch, laugh track, boing, slide whistle, crowd gasp, crowd aww, crowd boo, cha-ching, clown horn, dun dun dun, splat and evil laugh.
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Play applause” / “Give me a drumroll” | Plays a sound effect. |
| “Play [song title]” | Plays a song from your Music library: its intro once, then the loud loop. |
| “Cue up [song title]” | Loads the song without playing it, so you start it yourself. |
| “Quieter, we are talking” / “Back up loud” | Switches to the quiet loop under your voice, and back to the loud one. |
| “Pause the music” / “Carry on” | Holds the music and carries on. |
| “End the song” / “Stop the music” | Plays the song’s ending and stops, or fades it out. |
| “Change the background to something about space” | Plays a looping background video that matches what you say. “Clear the background” removes it. |
The phones, the TV and the join code
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Hide the scores on the phones” / “Show them again” | Hides or shows each player’s score and the leaderboard on their phone. |
| “Park the phones” / “Bring the phones back” | Puts every phone on a waiting screen while you set up, then opens them again. |
| “Put the TV on its waiting card” / “Bring the TV back” | Parks the TV, or shows the show again. |
| “Show the join code big” / “Put it back in the corner” / “Hide the join code” | Shows the join code and QR full screen, small in the corner, or hides it. |
Autopilot
Autopilot lets the cohosts run the game on the TV by themselves: they ask, wait for the phones, reveal and score. A few games still need you (the buzzer, Squares and queues), and autopilot stops and tells you when it reaches one.
| Say | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Run this game yourselves” / “Put it on autopilot” | Runs the game that is on the TV, then stops. |
| “Run the whole show” / “Take it from here” | Runs this game and goes on to the next step each time. |
| “Stop, I will take over” | Turns autopilot off. |
When it does not do what you asked
Say it shorter and plainer: “Next question” works better than a long sentence. Check that AI Game Control is Yes and the talk mode is not Chat.
The cohosts cannot run a game that is not set up. Ask them to build it first (“Make a ten-question trivia round about space”) or set it up in the Rundown. If a step failed, they are told, and they will try something simpler.
The buttons are always there. Next, Back and the sound bar on the Live tab do the same things, so you can mix voice and buttons however you like.
Something missing or unclear? Check the FAQ or browse all guides.