Control Room
Your screen shows your partner's orders. Shout them across. Co-op shift: survive 60 s.
Control Room is a two-player co-op shouting game where each screen shows the other player's orders, such as Fan up or Gear 3. Call them out, work your own controls when your partner calls yours, and keep power on until the shift ends.
Each of you sees only the other's orders, so nobody can play quietly. Shout "Fan up!", "Gear 3!" across the phone, slap your own controls when they shout yours, and keep the station's power on until the shift ends.
- How you hold it
- Face-off
- Match
- Co-op shift: survive 60 s
- Length
- About a minute
- Play
- Together with a friend or bot teammate
How to play Control Room: quick rules
About a minute at the default 60-second shift; about 95 seconds at the 90-second goal. Full rules, options and bot levels are further down.
- 1Your screen shows your partner's orders.
- 2Shout them across. Work your own controls when they shout yours.
- 3A gauge that runs out costs a power cell.
- 4Survive the shift with power left. Team alarm: both slam the key!
Control Room rules
Setup
- You play as one team. Each of you has a console of five controls at your end of the phone, with a monitor above it.
- Red's console has the Bolt button, Drop button, Fan switch, Gear dial and Wave fader. Blue's has the Bell button, Star button, Moon switch, Leaf dial and Flame fader. No icon appears on both consoles.
- Buttons are pressed. A switch flips up or down. A dial turns one click per tap, 1 to 4 and back to 1. A fader has three stops: tap a stop to move it there.
- One 3-2-1 countdown starts the shift, and there are four shared power cells.
Orders
- An order names one of your partner's controls and what to do with it, such as "Fan · up", "Gear · 3", "Bell · push" or "Wave · stop 2".
- Orders only ever show on the partner's monitor, as an icon, a target and the words. You read your partner's orders out; they read yours.
- Each console has at most two live orders at a time, and each order has its own gauge draining away.
- Set a control to its target and the order is done: a tick lights the control and the team's order count goes up.
- Change a control that has no matching order and it buzzes as a wrong move. By default nothing is lost.
- If an order's gauge runs empty, the team loses one power cell.
- Gauges get shorter as the shift goes on, so the last stretch is the loudest.
Winning and losing together
- Survive 60 or 90 seconds with power left, or complete 20 orders on that goal, and the station is saved: "Station saved!".
- Lose all four power cells and the shift ends at once: "Power out". Losing the last cell on the final tick still counts as a power out.
- There is one team result for both of you. A shift never counts as a Red or Blue win.
- A saved shift can set your pair's "best together" record: the most orders in a saved shift.
- Tap Play again after a save, or Retry after a power out.
Playing with a bot teammate
- The bot sits at Blue's console. It can't hear you, so you tap each of its order cards on your monitor to call it, and the bot acts only on orders you've called.
- The bot reads your orders from its own monitor and calls them back to you as speech cards with its face on them.
Tips to win at Control Room
- 1Call orders in the same short way every time, control then target: "Fan up!", "Gear 3!". Short calls are quicker to act on.
- 2Call the order with the emptiest gauge first. A gauge that runs out costs a power cell.
- 3Don't fiddle with your controls while you wait. A move with no matching order is wasted time, even if it costs nothing.
- 4Use two fingers on your own console when two orders come in at once.
- 5Save some breath for the end: gauges get shorter as the shift goes on.
Controls
Phone flat between you. Each player owns a half, and the far half faces the far player.
- Controls act the instant your finger touches down, so you can answer a shouted order at once.
- Each half is its own zone. You can work two controls with two fingers, but you can never reach your partner's console.
- Order cards aren't buttons, except in bot mode, where a tap on one calls it to the bot.
- Touches during the countdown, a pause or the result are ignored.
Options
Every option is free. Defaults are marked.
| Option | Choices | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Play | Same phone (default)With a bot | Play with a friend, or with a bot teammate at Blue's console. |
| Bot teammate | EasyNormal (default)Hard | How quickly and reliably the bot calls and acts. |
| Goal | Survive 60 s (default)Survive 90 s20 orders | On 20 orders there is no clock: complete 20 orders before the power runs out. |
| Pace | CalmNormal (default)Hectic | How long each order's gauge lasts. Calm suits first-timers and noisy rooms. |
| Team alarm | On (default)Off | Extra. Every 20 seconds a big alarm key covers both consoles. Both of you press yours within 4 seconds for +3 orders, or lose a power cell. |
| Scramble at 30 s | OnOff (default) | Extra. At 30 seconds each console's controls change places; icons and settings stay the same. |
| Strict | Wrong costs 1 sWrong is free (default) | Extra. When on, every wrong control takes a second off every live gauge. |
Play Control Room against the bot
Playing alone, the bot is your teammate. It sees only its own monitor and what you call to it, never your monitor, your touches or the orders you haven't called. It never acts on an uncalled order.
Easy
Slow to read your orders, sometimes forgets to call one, and often touches the wrong control first.
Normal
Calls your orders promptly and acts on its own in good time, with the odd wrong control.
Hard
Quick to call, quick to act and rarely touches the wrong control.
Online, tournaments and hints
- Online
- One phone onlyControl Room is real time and built on calling across the table: the result depends on both players' live reactions at once, so it stays on one phone.
- Tournament
- Not in tournamentsControl Room is a co-op game with one shared result and no winner, so it isn't offered in tournaments.
- Hints
- No hints here: it's all about your own reactions.
How it feels
- A different click for each control: a thunk, a snap, a ratchet and a slide.
- A bright chime when an order is done, a buzz on a wrong control and a power-down thud on a miss, with both monitors shaking.
- Faster ticking on a card whose gauge is nearly empty, and a siren when the team alarm rings.
- A cheer and a "+3!" stamp when you both make the alarm, and a team jingle when the station is saved.
Accessibility
- Controls and targets are icons, positions, clicks and stops, with words under each order; nothing relies on colour.
- One finger is enough, and every control is large.
- Partners can point or sign instead of shouting: nothing needs a voice or hearing, and every sound has a visual cue.
- With reduce motion on, pops become fades and the buzz, pulse, blink and radar sweep are off.
Control Room questions
Each player's screen shows the other player's orders. Call them out loud, and when your partner calls yours, set your own control to match before its gauge runs out. Keep at least one of four power cells until the shift ends.
Yes. You win or lose together with one shared result, and it never counts as a win for Red or Blue.
Yes, with a bot teammate on Easy, Normal or Hard. You tap its order cards to call them, and it calls your orders back to you.
About a minute at the default goal of surviving 60 seconds, or about 95 seconds at the 90-second goal.
Yes. Control Room in Duo Clash is built for two players on the same phone. Phone flat between you. Each player owns a half, and the far half faces the far player.
No. Control Room is real time and built on calling across the table: the result depends on both players' live reactions at once, so it stays on one phone.
Play Control Room on one phone
Free on Android. Sit face to face, or take on the bot on Easy, Normal or Hard.
