Kairos: Stop the Clock

One phone on the table. Everyone's finger down. Lift at 8 seconds; no clock, no warning. The first one to lift takes everybody else down with them.

Kairos — the time game.

Everyone puts a finger on the phone. Lift when you think it's been eight seconds. Closest wins.

No clock. No countdown. Nothing on screen to help you. Just your own sense of time — and the person beside you lifting early, making you doubt it.

THE LIFT — 2 to 6 players, one phone

Put the phone flat on the table. Everyone claims a piece of the screen and holds. The screen goes dark and a hidden clock starts.

Everybody plays every round, at the same time. Nobody sits and waits their turn.

The instant somebody lifts, everyone still holding sees it — and has to decide whether to trust their own count, or the person who just committed. That moment, four fingers on the glass and one of them gone, is the whole game.

Then the photo finish: every lift, to the hundredth of a second, in one picture.

SLAM — solo, or the whole table in turns

The classic. Slam the button to start a hidden clock. Slam it to stop. Closest to the target takes it. Play it alone anywhere, or pass the phone around.

PRACTICE — sharpen your count

Drills for your internal clock, including one where the clock runs in full view the entire time. You can't learn to feel a second you have never actually watched pass.

DISTORTION — for when it gets too easy

Turn it up and the game starts fighting you. A wrong number drifting past. Shapes at the edge of your vision. A pulse moving side to side at a tempo that keeps changing. Every level is announced before the round, and every one of them is beatable. You choose it, you see it coming, and it's still your fault when you miss.

PLAY IT YOUR WAY

• First to 12 points — the podium scores 3, 2 and 1, so a round is never over for everyone the moment one person has won it • Elimination — worst finger each round is out, last player standing takes it • Optional handicap for whoever is running away with it, shown on screen rather than applied behind your back

BUILT TO BE FAIR

Every lift is timed from the raw touch input, to the millisecond, and the result is shown to the hundredth of a second. A perfect round is genuinely rare and never rounded in your favour. When you lose, you can see exactly by how much.

• Works completely offline — no signal, no problem • No account, ever • No sign-up, no profile to make • No notifications asking you to come back

Kairos is a game about eight seconds. It should not want more of your day than that.