Tidier saved games The Score and Time tabs on a saved game now match the rest of the app's switches, and Delete Game sits right under whichever tab you're on instead of far down the page.

16:03 ET · iOS 202609261603 · Android 109261603

Random, every game Pick Random in Game Theme and every new game now deals a fresh theme, whether you start a new one, restart or change players. Picking a theme yourself switches it off.

15:51 ET · iOS 202609261551 · Android 109261551

Sound switches Sound Effects is a switch again, with Sound Options underneath. Turn Pass Sound and the Turn Alert sound each have their own on/off switch, with the sound choice behind it.

15:51 ET · iOS 202609261551 · Android 109261551

Cleaner two-player boards Two-player boards leave the side +/- buttons off until you flip Show +/- Buttons yourself. After that, the switch covers every board.

15:51 ET · iOS 202609261551 · Android 109261551

A calmer Settings Settings has more breathing room, one-line descriptions, slightly smaller switches and softer grey text.

15:51 ET · iOS 202609261551 · Android 109261551

Android splash screen Android now opens on the PlayIRL splash screen, matching iPhone.

15:51 ET · iOS 202609261551 · Android 109261551

A Sound Effects menu Every sound option now lives in one place: tap Sound Effects in Settings for the on/off switch, Turn Pass Sound and Alert Sound. Your theme's Sound Pack and Last Life stay where they were.

13:13 ET · iOS 202609261313 · Android 109261313

One switch for +/- buttons Show +/- Buttons now covers every board, two-player games included, instead of having a separate two-player switch.

13:13 ET · iOS 202609261313 · Android 109261313

Send or resume from history Life & Turn History for the game you're playing now has Send Game and Resume buttons pinned to the bottom, like a saved game's.

13:13 ET · iOS 202609261313 · Android 109261313

Smoother home screen The History and Settings buttons on the home screen now appear fully frosted straight away, instead of filling in a moment later, including after closing a menu.

13:13 ET · iOS 202609261313 · Android 109261313

Neater layout previews The little seat tiles in layout previews have squarer corners.

13:13 ET · iOS 202609261313 · Android 109261313

Mono A new theme with nothing but black tiles and white numbers. Pair it with the Flat UI Theme for the most minimal board in the app.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

Commander damage goes round the table Opening commander damage is quicker, and the other tiles now turn over one at a time, clockwise from the player who opened it. Closing it turns them back the same way.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

Life totals always fit Big totals no longer slip underneath the +/- buttons on any theme, and player names can no longer grow larger than the life total beside them on long, narrow tiles.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

Last Life you can't miss The Last Life flash now shows on every theme, including card art, and flashes between red and white so it stands out on a red tile too.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

+/- buttons in 2-player A new switch under Settings → Appearance puts the side +/- buttons on two-player boards as well. Off unless you turn it on.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

Tap crease with buttons Show Tap Crease now draws its line even when the +/- buttons are on, so the two can be used together.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

More life history on screen The crossed-out totals under a two-player tile are a little smaller, so more of them fit.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

Game cards that match Games in History and the Game in progress card now look the same, with a clock beside each game's length. A game's Ended time is now when play actually stopped, not when the next game was dealt.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

Today and Yesterday History now says Today and Yesterday by the calendar, so a game from late last night no longer reads as today.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

Player Timing mid-game Switching Player Timing on during a game now asks whose turn it is, instead of guessing.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

A stronger Long Turn Alert The Long Turn Alert flash is longer and harder to miss.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

A tidier Settings The menu bar is now always on, the in-game menu's buttons are all the same height, the Random theme card shows a mix of colours, About has a Done button, and switches in the Flat UI Theme turn green when on. Block UI is now called the Flat UI Theme.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

Cleaner notched iPhones On the Block theme, the doubled line under the top bar on iPhones with a notch is gone.

12:46 ET · iOS 202609261246 · Android 109261246

Long Turn Alert Under Player Timing → Timer Options. Counting up, the player's tile flashes once their turn has run a set number of minutes; on a chess clock or a time limit, it flashes when they are nearly out of time. Choose a flash on its own or a flash with a sound — a ticking clock by default.

17:06 ET · iOS 202609251706 · Android 109251706

The Chaos sound pack Let chaos reign: pick Chaos in Sound Pack and every life tap plays one of the silly sounds at random — air horn, Fahhh, Inception, the bell, a pop, or worse. Menus keep their normal sounds.

17:06 ET · iOS 202609251706 · Android 109251706

Score and Time tabs, mid-game Life & Turn History now looks like a saved game: the game's details at the top, then a Score tab with standings, the life chart and every change, and a Time tab with how long the game has run and each player's share. Tapping a change still lets you roll back to it.

17:06 ET · iOS 202609251706 · Android 109251706

20 life means a 1v1 Setting up a two-player game at 20 life now switches Commander Mode off for you. Turn it back on if you want it.

17:06 ET · iOS 202609251706 · Android 109251706

Hold the clock for its history Press and hold the game clock to open Life & Turn History straight on its Time tab.

17:06 ET · iOS 202609251706 · Android 109251706

Game Details The details card at the top of every game now lists everything about it: layout, theme, Commander Mode, player names, who went first, the device it was played on and exactly how the clocks were set up. Tap anywhere on the card to open or close it, and Done closes the screen.

17:06 ET · iOS 202609251706 · Android 109251706

An easier-to-read history Each change in the log reads in one line, like 20 → +5 → 25. Standings show larger totals with the same +/- badges as the log, player chips look the same everywhere, and switching between Score and Time no longer makes the screen jump.

17:06 ET · iOS 202609251706 · Android 109251706

Sounds for going back Taps tick up and ways out tick down: Back, Done and tapping outside a menu now play a falling click, so you can hear which way you went.

17:06 ET · iOS 202609251706 · Android 109251706

A centred top bar When the controls sit between two players, they are now exactly centred between the tiles instead of leaning toward the bottom one.

17:06 ET · iOS 202609251706 · Android 109251706

Turn numbers on the life chart Open Life Over Time full screen and the bottom of the chart now counts the turns, with the number of turns as its heading and the start and end times along the top. Turns are counted the way the turn badge counts them, once around the table.

23:59 ET · iOS 202609242359 · Android 109250000

Bolder player names Player names are bold in every player chip — standings, the life chart, the game log and the time breakdown — so they stand out from the numbers around them.

23:59 ET · iOS 202609242359 · Android 109250000

Game in progress, by name Tapping the game card on the Game in progress prompt opens a screen titled Game in progress, not a date.

23:59 ET · iOS 202609242359 · Android 109250000

A softer lift on the turn badge The solid tab showing whose turn it is has a large, gentle shadow, so it sits up off the player's tile.

23:59 ET · iOS 202609242359 · Android 109250000

The bell is called Ding The bell turn-pass sound was listed as Ding Ding, but it only ever rang once. It's Ding now.

23:59 ET · iOS 202609242359 · Android 109250000

Outlaw sounds like a western On the Outlaw theme, changing a life total fires a real recorded ricochet — a different one each time, lower when you lose life and higher when you gain it. Opening commander damage, the More button and pausing or resuming the clock cock a revolver's hammer.

22:51 ET · iOS 202609242251 · Android 109242251

Resumed games keep their timers A game you resume, or open from a link someone sent you, now brings its own timer settings — which clocks were on, turns or priority, and any time limits — instead of whatever this phone was last set to.

22:51 ET · iOS 202609242251 · Android 109242251

See your game before you resume it On the Game in progress prompt, tap the game card to see the whole game — standings, the life chart, every change and the turn times — then resume straight from there.

22:51 ET · iOS 202609242251 · Android 109242251

The same player chip everywhere Everywhere a player is named — history, standings, the life chart, the time breakdown, the resume card — they now get the same chip with P1, P2 and so on in turn order. The dot matches their tile, including the glowing tiles on Moonlit, Outlaw and Off World.

22:51 ET · iOS 202609242251 · Android 109242251

The life chart from the first moment Life History shows the Life Over Time chart as soon as a game starts, with every player's total, instead of waiting for the first life change.

22:51 ET · iOS 202609242251 · Android 109242251

A clearer time breakdown The Time Breakdown row in Life History opens a tidier split of how long the game took and how much of it each player used, always in P1, P2 order. Game History marks games that tracked player time with an hourglass.

22:51 ET · iOS 202609242251 · Android 109242251

A tidier game menu Life & Turn History and Send Game each have a row of their own, with Restart and Quit side by side at the top.

22:51 ET · iOS 202609242251 · Android 109242251

Burrow uses the standard sounds The Burrow theme's cartoon ricochets and whistles are gone; it now plays the app's standard sounds. The ricochets live on in Outlaw.

22:51 ET · iOS 202609242251 · Android 109242251

Turn pass sounds, moved and one more Turn Pass Sound now lives in Timer Options, under Special Features. Surprise me is now called Randomize, and there's a new sound to pick: Fart. Choosing who goes first plays the plain clock tap rather than your silly sound.

22:51 ET · iOS 202609242251 · Android 109242251

Silly sounds for passing the turn Settings → Special Features → Turn Pass Sound: swap the clock tap for an air horn, a "Fahhh", an Inception BRAAAM, a bell or a pop — or Surprise me for a different one every pass. Tap a sound to hear it. The air horn has a surprise of its own.

19:53 ET · iOS 202609241953 · Android 109241953

Hold the clock for the game's time Press and hold the game clock at the top of the board to see how long the game has run — split by player when Player Timing is on — with Life History one tap away.

19:53 ET · iOS 202609241953 · Android 109241953

Get a remote button A new page shows the one-button Bluetooth remote we use and how to set it up to pass the turn. Find it under Remote in Timer Options, or on About.

19:53 ET · iOS 202609241953 · Android 109241953

Roomier on tablets The home screen and the pop-up prompts (Game in progress, Pick starting player and the rest) now grow with bigger screens instead of sitting in a narrow strip. Phones look the same.

19:53 ET · iOS 202609241953 · Android 109241953

A simpler Help section The What's new row is gone from Settings. This update log, linked from About, covers every release.

19:53 ET · iOS 202609241953 · Android 109241953

Your build number in About Settings → About now shows the app's build number under the date it was built — the same number as on this page, so you can tell at a glance whether you have an update.

08:31 ET · iOS 202609240831 · Android 109240831

Moonlit's name, back in bold In the theme picker and the Game Theme row, Moonlit's name is drawn in its big, wide lettering again, while player names keep the rounder, easier-to-read face.

08:31 ET · iOS 202609240831 · Android 109240831

Moonlit is easier to read Moonlit's life totals are big, bold and wide, and player names and the +/- change bubble use a rounder, friendlier face that stays readable at small sizes. Games you started in Moonlit before pick the new look up by themselves.

15:40 ET · iOS 202609231540 · Android 109231540

Done lights up when you change something In Settings and the in-game menu, Done turns blue as soon as you change something — a theme, a layout, player names — and stays blue until you close the menu.

15:40 ET · iOS 202609231540 · Android 109231540

A simpler Restart Restart Game is now one big button. To change players or the layout, Quit Game takes you back to setup.

15:40 ET · iOS 202609231540 · Android 109231540

Send Game without the warning The Experimental Feature banner is gone from Send Game.

15:40 ET · iOS 202609231540 · Android 109231540

Privacy policy and account deletion Settings → About links to the privacy policy, and Settings → Account has a Delete account option for anyone signed in.

15:40 ET · iOS 202609231540 · Android 109231540

Remotes that needed a keyboard alongside Some Bluetooth remotes did nothing on an iPhone unless a keyboard was paired too — iOS only passed their button on while it thought a real keyboard was connected. The app now listens for them directly, so they work on their own.

00:13 ET · iOS 202609230013 · Android 109230014

Choose your remote's key by hand Under the remote's Learn button, Choose Key Manually lists the keys remotes commonly send, with a note on which remotes send each one — for when you already know, or learning does not pick it up.

23:39 ET · iOS 202609222339 · Android 109222339

Quit from the resume screen Reopening the app to a game in progress now offers Quit alongside Start New and Resume. The game is kept in History and you land on the home screen.

23:39 ET · iOS 202609222339 · Android 109222339

Better reports for remote trouble With Developer Logging on, the copied report now shows exactly what your phone received from a remote — so a button that still does nothing can be tracked down in one message.

23:39 ET · iOS 202609222339 · Android 109222339

Your remote starts the game With the turn timer on, a new game waits on "Tap to start" — and a press of your Bluetooth remote there did nothing, so it looked broken. The first press now starts the game, exactly as tapping does.

22:07 ET · iOS 202609222207 · Android 109222207

A chess clock that refills every turn The chess clock's time allowance can now cover the whole game, as before, or refill every turn — pick Each Turn under Timer Options and set how long a turn gets.

22:07 ET · iOS 202609222207 · Android 109222207

Send us a report when something misbehaves Turn on Developer Logging under Settings → Testing and the app keeps a note of what it hears from your remote. Copy the report and send it to us — it tells us exactly why a button is not doing what it should.

22:07 ET · iOS 202609222207 · Android 109222207

Tidier timer settings Options that belong to a setting now sit in their own panel beneath it, the time pickers are a single control, and the chess clock's bank is called its time allowance.

22:07 ET · iOS 202609222207 · Android 109222207

The art picker opens straight away Choosing a tile's background used to fetch a hundred and thirty pictures over the network every time you opened it, so on a phone it often showed nothing at all. Every thumbnail is now in the app — it opens full, instantly, with no signal needed.

20:46 ET · iOS 202609222046 · Android 109222046

Land art to choose from The background picker offers the land artwork as well as the cards — over two hundred pieces, from Alpha basics onward.

20:46 ET · iOS 202609222046 · Android 109222046

Hand-picked printings Some cards and lands now carry a specific artwork chosen by hand rather than whichever printing came first.

20:46 ET · iOS 202609222046 · Android 109222046

Volume Up works as a turn remote on iPhone Cheap Bluetooth shutter remotes send Volume Up, which iOS keeps for itself — so it could never be learned. It can now. While it is bound, your phone's own volume button passes the turn too.

20:46 ET · iOS 202609222046 · Android 109222046

The artwork you know the card by Card backgrounds now use each card's classic art. Signed collector art cards — sideways, with the artist's name across the picture — are gone, along with prerelease and alternate-art printings that had slipped in.

18:28 ET · iOS 202609221828 · Android 109221829

The artist credit shows again The line under a card background — artist, card and set — was stuck loading and never arrived. It is there straight away now, for land art as well as cards, with no signal needed.

18:28 ET · iOS 202609221828 · Android 109221829

Player names start off A new game shows life totals only. Turn them on under Settings if your table names its seats.

18:28 ET · iOS 202609221828 · Android 109221829

Necrotica's numbers Two-digit totals were overlapping in the Necrotica theme, and the numbers carried a shadow they did not need.

18:28 ET · iOS 202609221828 · Android 109221829

Over-time totals you can read A player past their time limit shows a red total that stays legible on light tiles as well as dark ones.

18:28 ET · iOS 202609221828 · Android 109221829

A clearer resume card The game waiting to be resumed reads like a row in Game History — when you last played, how long it ran, and whose turn it was.

18:28 ET · iOS 202609221828 · Android 109221829

Home screen tidy-up Start Game is never smaller than the buttons beside it, and the PlayIRL.gg link at the bottom is visible again.

18:28 ET · iOS 202609221828 · Android 109221829

Time priority instead of turns Choose Priority under Turn / Priority Timing and every tile gets its own clock. Tap yours to take priority; your time runs until another player takes it from you.

18:51 ET · iOS 202609211851 · Android 109211851

Time limits for both clocks The timer can now have a limit, each turn or for the whole game, and the chess clock keeps its bank. When someone runs out the game pauses and the table chooses: add 1, 3 or 5 minutes, keep playing in the red, or eliminate them.

18:51 ET · iOS 202609211851 · Android 109211851

Restart or start a new game Restart Game now asks whether to replay the same table straight away or go through setup to change players, layout and theme.

18:51 ET · iOS 202609211851 · Android 109211851

A roomier theme picker Themes sit two to a row, and Random is a card of its own that shows the colours of whatever it picked.

18:51 ET · iOS 202609211851 · Android 109211851

A new game starts on a clean clock Extra time handed out when someone's clock ran out no longer carries over into your next game.

18:51 ET · iOS 202609211851 · Android 109211851

Edit Turn is now Manage Turn Same place in the menu, a clearer name.

18:51 ET · iOS 202609211851 · Android 109211851

A quieter Necrotica board The seat colours are less saturated and each tile falls away into its own shadow, so six seats side by side stop looking like six copies of one tile.

11:47 ET · iOS 202609201147 · Android 109201148

A paused game is easier to spot The clock reads Paused in words beside the time — including past the first hour, where it used to disappear — and it pulses more strongly. The seat holding the turn stays lit while the rest of the board dims, so you can still see whose turn it was.

11:47 ET · iOS 202609201147 · Android 109201148

Picking a player always finishes Tapping the board while the randomiser was running used to stop it early, on a name that was not the one it had picked. Nothing interrupts the draw now, except rolling it again.

11:47 ET · iOS 202609201147 · Android 109201148

Tap to start works on a paused board If the game was paused when a starting player was chosen, tapping their tile did nothing at all.

11:47 ET · iOS 202609201147 · Android 109201148

Edit turn has a way out It opens with the usual back and Done buttons at the top instead of only closing if you tap outside it, and the panel no longer shifts as you pick a seat.

11:47 ET · iOS 202609201147 · Android 109201148

Resuming a game tells you which one The card that asks whether to carry on now names the format and starting life as well as the players, and says how many are out — so a four-player Commander board and a four-player Standard board are no longer the same line.

11:47 ET · iOS 202609201147 · Android 109201148

New lettering for the life totals Necrotica's numbers are set in a new face and sit closer together, so a two-digit total reads as one mark rather than two. Player names keep the lettering they had.

01:15 ET · iOS 202609200115 · Android 109200115

The plus and minus are back on the tap counter The little badge that shows how much you have just added or taken away was missing its + or −, leaving a bare number with no sign.

01:15 ET · iOS 202609200115 · Android 109200115

A calmer Necrotica board The seat colours are much less saturated, and each tile now falls away into its own shadow rather than all six sharing one. Six seats side by side stop reading as six copies of the same tile.

01:15 ET · iOS 202609200115 · Android 109200115

Necrotica gets its own face The death-metal theme has new lettering for names and numbers, and its tiles have picked up grime to match.

23:51 ET · iOS 202609192351 · Android 109192351

Your turn badge can show the whole game When the turn timer counts up, the badge can show your running total for the game instead of only the turn you are on. Switch between them in the turn timer's settings.

23:51 ET · iOS 202609192351 · Android 109192351

Edit Turn If the turn lands on the wrong seat, or the turn number drifts, you can now set both by hand from the menu. It changes those two things and leaves the rest of the game alone — no restart, no rewind.

23:51 ET · iOS 202609192351 · Android 109192351

The menu stops offering to re-pick a starting player Select Starting Player now disappears once the first turn has begun, so there is no obvious-looking row that would re-anchor turn order mid-game. It stays gone after you close and reopen the app.

23:51 ET · iOS 202609192351 · Android 109192351

Opening the menu no longer inflates your turn Once the turn had been passed at least once, opening the menu could add the whole game's elapsed time to the turn badge. The turn is now measured from when the turn started.

23:51 ET · iOS 202609192351 · Android 109192351

Choosing who goes first asks the question The prompt now says it is picking a starting player and offers Randomize or Choose manually, rather than leaving you to work out what the buttons meant.

23:51 ET · iOS 202609192351 · Android 109192351

Menus open at the top Opening a menu from inside another one used to drop you part-way down the new one, sometimes at the very bottom. Every menu now starts where it should.

23:51 ET · iOS 202609192351 · Android 109192351

A theme list that alternates The theme picker is reordered so the bold and the moody alternate as you scroll, with Gallery featured at the top.

23:51 ET · iOS 202609192351 · Android 109192351

Play, not Resume In Game History, the button that puts a past game back on the board now says Play. Deleting a game has moved to the bottom of its own page, and clearing all history now lives in Settings.

23:51 ET · iOS 202609192351 · Android 109192351

Picking the theme you already have re-rolls it Tapping the theme that is already applied used to do nothing at all. It now re-applies it, so you get a fresh draw of card art without having to switch away and back.

11:56 ET · iOS 202609191156 · Android 109191156

Card art starts on Mixed The Gallery theme now opens with spells and lands together. Spells only and Lands only are still one tap away in the theme picker.

11:56 ET · iOS 202609191156 · Android 109191156

A guide to every feature About now opens with How to use Play IRL — a walkthrough of the board, commander damage, the turn timer, themes, sharing and accounts, with screenshots of each.

11:56 ET · iOS 202609191156 · Android 109191156

About says what the app is A line under the wordmark: free, works signed out, and signing in is only for carrying your history between devices. Tapping the wordmark now opens playirl.gg.

11:56 ET · iOS 202609191156 · Android 109191156

A game in progress is backed up too A game that is still running is snapshotted to your account, so a phone that dies mid-table does not take the evening with it.

21:49 ET · iOS 202609182149 · Android 109182149

A longer history Saved games are bounded by how much room they take rather than a flat count of 50, so a normal history keeps far more of your games — and an account keeps more still.

20:26 ET · iOS 202609182026 · Android 109182027

A shared board asks before it starts Opening a link to a board no longer drops you straight into someone else's game — it tells you what it is and waits for you.

17:53 ET · iOS 202609181753 · Android 109181753

Games remember the device A saved game now records which phone or tablet it was played on, which is what makes a shared history readable when three people are adding to it.

17:53 ET · iOS 202609181753 · Android 109181753

Your history follows you between devices Games sync on their own — when one ends, when the app comes back to the foreground, and whenever you open your history on any device. There is no button to remember to press.

15:46 ET · iOS 202609181546 · Android 109181546

The remote cannot drive a covered board With the board covered, a Bluetooth remote no longer passes the turn behind the cover.

15:46 ET · iOS 202609181546 · Android 109181546

Optional playirl.gg accounts Sign in from Settings and your game history is kept in your account. It is entirely optional — the app works exactly as before signed out, and nothing leaves the device until you sign in.

11:22 ET · iOS 202609181122 · Android 109181122

A paused game drains Pausing now fades the board's colour and animates into the paused state, so a table glanced at from across the room reads as stopped.

22:44 ET · iOS 202609172244 · Android 109172244

Sound and haptics A sweep across the app, so the same action feels the same wherever you do it.

22:44 ET · iOS 202609172244 · Android 109172244

Count-down turns Give each turn a budget and the clock runs down instead of up, with a prompt when someone's flag falls.

21:29 ET · iOS 202609172129 · Android 109172129

The clock sounds like a clock Passing the turn makes a chess-clock clack, on every theme, and the tile taking the clock flashes as it arrives.

21:29 ET · iOS 202609172129 · Android 109172129

The remote button is the turn badge Remote control now lives with the turn timer settings rather than off on its own, and the turn clock's dependent settings nest under it.

19:52 ET · iOS 202609171952 · Android 109171952

A Done button in every player menu It turns blue as soon as you change something, so there is never a question of whether a change took.

18:06 ET · iOS 202609171806 · Android 109171806

A received board resumes Taking over a shared game no longer re-asks who goes first — it continues the game that was handed to you.

07:31 ET · iOS 202609160731 · Android 109160731

In-app links point at the app's own page Links out of the app now land on playirl.gg/app rather than the site's front door.

07:31 ET · iOS 202609160731 · Android 109160731