The Control page is where you run a game. While players are in the room, this is the one screen you keep open — it shows the timer, the objectives, the hints you can send, the displays players see, and the audio in the room. Everything you need to start a session, help a stuck team, and reset the room afterwards lives here.
Control is not one of the icons in the main navigation — it always opens for one specific game. Press Control on a game’s card on the Dashboard, or use the Control button that sits beside the game name while you are in the Editor or Insights. Each game has its own Control page, and you can move between rooms without losing your place.
This is the day-to-day screen for running a game — you watch the room, send hints, and keep the session on time. You don’t configure or design a game here; that happens in the Editor.
The regions of the page
The Control page is organized into a few regions. Once you recognize them, everything on the page has a home.
1. The control dock
The control dock is the persistent bar that runs along the top of the page — or along the bottom, if you change Control dock position in System → Overview. It stays visible the whole time and holds the most important live controls:
- The timer and the current game state (Idle, Running, Paused, and so on).
- The session buttons — Start, Pause, Resume, End, Success, Failed, Reset.
- Timer Adjust and Timer Speed, for changing the time remaining or how fast the clock runs.
- Session Details — who is running the room, how many players, hints used, and whether to include this run in analytics.
- The game nameplate, for switching to another room.
These controls are covered in Running a Game.
2. The control column
The control column fills the middle of the page with the content you work in most: the Objectives panel, and beside it the live Timeline log and the tools for sending hints. This is where you watch player progress, mark objectives complete, send a clue, and respond to a help request.
Objectives and hints are covered in Hints and Objectives.
3. The rail
The rail runs down the side of the page under the heading Operations. It is a stack of sections you expand and collapse — open the one you need and fold it away when you are done. ARC leaves out any section the game has nothing to put in, so a simple room has a shorter rail. The rail holds:
- Quick Actions — one-tap buttons that run a scene or automation (for example, “unlock the exit” or “reset the lights”), or open a panel.
- Devices — the props and hardware in the room, with the controls staff are allowed to operate live.
- Variables — the game values your automations read and write.
- Displays — the screens players see, with online/offline status and controls to open, clear, or refresh them. Each display card also folds open to show that screen’s own audio sliders.
Two more sections appear only when they apply: Active loops, while a looping scene is running, and Speech recognition, when a microphone is listening for keywords and lock codes.
Quick Actions, Displays, and audio are covered in Displays and Audio.
4. The information bar
Along the opposite edge from the control dock sits the information bar. It is a thin strip of at-a-glance readouts rather than controls. Depending on your setup it can show room temperature and door sensors, the Assist cell, a Moments cell counting the photos and clips captured this session, a Previous game line summarizing the last run in this room, the notification ticker, and buttons for the Dashboard, chat, and the light or dark theme.
Where to go next
- Running a Game — the session lifecycle and timer controls, start to finish.
- Hints and Objectives — tracking progress and helping a stuck team.
- Displays and Audio — the screens and sound players experience.
- Resetting a Room — returning the room to its starting state for the next group.