Clapping out loud
In ClapOut you do not call out a word on your last card, you clap. Tapping CLAP always works, but with the microphone on, a real clap of your hands counts too. Here is how your phone hears it, and how to make it count every time.
The rules of the clap are the same however you do it: when a play leaves you with one card, clap before the next player plays or draws, and if someone else forgets, clap to catch them. How to play has the full rules of the clap and the catch. This guide is about the microphone.
Turning it on
At the table, next to the emote button, there is a small icon of clapping hands with sound arcs. Its label is "Clap with the microphone". Tap it and your browser asks whether ClapOut may use your microphone. Say yes and the icon lights up; its label changes to "Mic on — clap out loud". Tap it again to turn it off.
The microphone is only ever switched on by that tap. On an iPhone, this matters: Safari only lets a page start listening inside a tap, which is why there is no setting that turns it on automatically.
If you say no, or your browser cannot open the microphone, the game tells you so: "The microphone isn't available; the CLAP button still works." You can allow the microphone later in your browser's settings for the site and tap the icon again, or simply keep tapping CLAP. Nothing about the game depends on the microphone.
What your phone listens for
A clap is a very particular sound. It is sudden, loud and short, and it usually arrives out of comparative quiet. ClapOut's detector looks for exactly that shape and nothing else.
- It checks the sound level once for every frame your screen draws, usually about sixty times a second, and keeps only the loudest point of each slice.
- A clap must be loud. The peak has to reach about a quarter of the loudest sound the microphone can take in.
- A clap must be sudden. The slice just before it must have been quiet. So a sound that builds up gradually, like a song getting louder, does not count, because the moment before it was not quiet.
- One clap at a time. After a clap counts, the detector ignores everything for half a second, so the echo of a clap in a hard-walled room, or a double clap, counts once.
The detector also asks your browser for the microphone's plain signal, with its echo cancelling, noise suppression and automatic volume switched off. Those features are made for voice calls, and they would soften the sharp edge of a clap that the detector is looking for.
Nothing is recorded
All of this happens on your phone, in the page itself. The detector keeps no sound at all: it reads how loud each slice was, compares it with the slice before, and lets it go. When it hears a clap, the only thing your phone sends to the table is the same message a tap on CLAP would send. No audio is stored, and none is sent to us or anyone else.
The microphone is released when you turn the icon off or leave the table. If something else takes the microphone, such as a phone call, your browser ends the capture and ClapOut switches the clap microphone off; tap the icon again when you are back.
Voice chat is a separate feature with its own microphone button. Host a table and invite friends explains how it works.
Where a clap goes
A clap from your hands is aimed in exactly the way a tap on the CLAP button is:
| At the moment you clap | Your clap counts as |
|---|---|
| Your own window is open: a play just left you one card | Your own clap. It always counts as yours, never as a catch. |
| Another player's window is open and they have not clapped | A catch attempt in the race against them. If two windows are open at once, it goes to the one that opened most recently. |
| No window is open, but a player is catchable | A catch on that player. |
| Nothing is going on | Nothing. The table turns it down with a short note that clears on the next move, and it costs you nothing. A clap between games is ignored altogether. |
The CLAP button helps you read this: when a clap would be a catch in a race, its label reads CATCH instead of CLAP. A wrong catch costs nothing, so a stray clap never hurts you.
While the clap microphone is on, the game's own sound effects go quiet, so your phone's speaker cannot set off its own microphone.
Tips for reliable clapping
- Clap sharply, near the phone. A crisp clap with flat hands, within arm's length of the phone, is louder and more sudden than a soft cupped one.
- Mind the room. The detector needs a quiet moment before the clap. A television, music or a loud conversation right by the phone can keep the room too loud for a clap to stand out. In a noisy room, tap CLAP instead.
- Do not block the microphone. On most phones it sits at the bottom edge. A hand or a case over it muffles everything.
- One clap is enough. A second clap within half a second is ignored anyway, and a second clap later could become a catch attempt.
- Several phones in one room? Every phone with its microphone on can hear every clap in the room. That is part of the fun, but it means your neighbour's loud clap can land on your phone as well. If it gets chaotic, those who would rather not join the free-for-all can switch their microphone off and tap.
Even when everyone taps, ask the table to clap their hands out loud as well. Hearing the clap is half of what makes a catch feel fair. Family game night has more ideas for a table in one room.
Clapping in Clap Catch
The Clap Catch mini-game, one of the free ways to earn Claps, has a hard mode called Clap for real, where you clap at the microphone instead of tapping. It uses the same detector, so the same tips apply, and the microphone is released when the run ends. Claps, the Club and the store explains the mini-game.