The game page and player controls
Every game has its own page, at an address of the form https://onegameaday.net/games/<slug>, where the slug is the game's short permanent name. You reach it from the front page, from All games, from the release history or from a link someone shared.
Before you press Play
The player first shows the game's artwork with a large Play button and a line saying which inputs the game plays with, for example keyboard, mouse and touch.
Nothing of the game itself is loaded until you press Play. The page stays light if you only came to read about the game.
The Play now button on the front page brings you to this page and starts the game immediately.
Starting the game
Press Play. The player shows a loading message with the game's name and then hands the frame over to the game.
As soon as the game has loaded, keyboard focus moves into it, so key presses go to the game without an extra click.
On a phone, a tablet or a small window
On touch devices, and in windows narrower than about 760 pixels or shorter than about 520 pixels, the game fills the browser window as soon as you press Play.
A slim bar at the top holds a back arrow, the game's title and a full screen button. When a phone is held sideways the bar shrinks to the back arrow alone, tucked into a corner, so the game gets the whole screen.
The controls under the game
A bar under the game holds the player controls.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Restart | Appears once the game is running. Loads the game again from the beginning. |
| Favourite | Saves the game to your favourites in this browser. The button reads "Saved" while it is on. |
| Share | Shares or copies a link to the game's page. |
| Full screen | Makes the game fill the whole screen. |
The bar is hidden while a game fills the screen or the window. On a phone, press the back arrow first to reach Restart, Favourite and Share.
Restart
Restart throws away the running game and loads it again in the same frame. Anything the game had not saved is lost. Progress the game has already saved in your browser is not touched.
Favourite
Press Favourite to add the game to your favourites; press it again to remove it. Favourites are stored in your browser, not on the site. They appear on My games and in a "Your favourites" row on the front page.
Share
On a touch device that has a system share sheet, Share opens it with the game's name, tagline and page address. Everywhere else it copies the page address to the clipboard and the button briefly reads "Link copied".
If the browser refuses clipboard access, the button reads "Copy the address bar link" instead; copy the address from the address bar by hand.
Full screen
Full screen asks the browser to show the player on the whole screen. On a computer, press Esc to leave; the bar under the game is hidden while the game is in full screen.
- On touch devices a slim bar stays visible at the top in full screen, because there is no
Esckey. Its back arrow and its full screen button both leave full screen. - For games made for a wide screen, the player asks the browser to lock the screen to landscape while in full screen. Browsers that do not allow this simply ignore the request.
- iPhone browsers do not offer full screen for parts of a page. There, the button switches the full-window view on and off instead: the game fills the browser window, which is as far as the browser allows.
Closing a game
The back arrow in the top bar is labelled "Close the game and go back to the page". It leaves full screen or the full-window view and shows the game page again.
The game is not unloaded when you do this: it stays in the player on the page, and may keep running there. To stop a game completely, leave the page or reload it.
On a keyboard, Esc also leaves the full-window view, as long as keyboard focus is on the page and not inside the game. While focus is inside the game, key presses go to the game.
If the game does not load
The player reports problems in plain words and offers a Try again button. Troubleshooting lists each message and what to do about it.
The rest of the game page
Below the player the page shows what the game's developer has provided:
- The description: the game's title, tagline and a few sentences about it.
- How to play: a short paragraph of instructions, when the game has one.
- Controls: a list of keys, clicks, taps or buttons and what each does, grouped by keyboard, mouse, touch and gamepad. See Controls.
- About this game: the release date, release number, category, the inputs it plays with, the screen shape it suits best, who made it, and the price. Once real plays have been counted the box also shows the number of plays and, after ten counted plays, a typical session length.
- Tags: each tag links to the list of all games with that tag.
- The day before / The day after: links to the neighbouring releases.
- Play next: up to six related games, chosen as described in Finding games.
A game that has been retired from the catalog shows a notice saying so. It can still be played on its page, but it no longer appears in search or in the rankings.