Fayla

A birthday party with a scoreboard on it.

Challenges, games with the rules on everybody's phone, running counts and a cabinet of trophies — for a thirtieth, a fortieth, or a weekend away that happens to have a cake in it.

Open the sample weekend Get the first invitation

Pick what suits the room and release it when the room is ready. Points for the challenges, trophies at the end, and a record of the night that guests actually read the next morning.

Turn off anything that does not fit. A birthday party with no forfeits and no missions is the same product with two switches thrown.

How it goes

Step 1

Build it in an evening

Pick the kind of event and take what suits from a catalogue of challenges, games, secret missions and trophies that are already written. Set the plan, and the shopping list writes itself. An evening on the sofa, not a spreadsheet.

Step 2

Send one link

One link into the group chat. Everybody taps their name and they are in — no account, no password, nothing to install. The one thing that needs proving, a secret mission, proves itself with a link of its own.

Step 3

Run it from your phone

Release a challenge when it suits the room, award the points, spin the wheel, settle the bill. Close it out on the drive home and everyone gets the record of it.

What a birthday party starts with

Every one of these is a switch, and this is where a birthday party starts. Throw any of them the other way and the product is still the product.

The basics

Who is coming, their links, the look and the words.

Challenges

Things to do, released when they suit the crowd.

Points

A leaderboard, points for challenges, undo for mistakes.

Trophies

A cabinet of awards and a ceremony at the end.

Games in the bag

Card and party games with rules on the phone.

Live rounds

Vote rounds, blind hats and call-and-response, run from one phone.

Running counts

Who did it most, counted by everyone.

The plan

Days, times, places, and a nudge when it is time.

Prep and shopping

What to bring, what to buy, what the venue already has.

Nudges

Web push to every phone that opted in.

Faces

A photo of each person beside their name.

Photo uploadsparty

Proof on a challenge, a photo on a memory, receipts on the bill, a gallery in the wrap.

Memories

Everyone writes what they will remember.

The wrap

Close it out: the record, the stats, an export, an optional story.

Get the first invitation

It opens to strangers before the summer. Leave an address and you will hear once, the day it does.

Kept for twelve months, then deleted on its own. One email when it opens and nothing else, ever, to anybody. Changed your mind? Put the same address in and press .

Other kinds of event

What Fayla is · the sample weekend