Displays

Add and design the screens players see — the countdown, hints, and media — and bind them to a physical screen.

Published Jun 19, 2026

A display is a screen players see — a TV, monitor, or browser tab inside the room — that shows the countdown timer, the hints staff send, and any media you push. The Displays tab is where you add a game’s screens and design how they look.

Open the Editor, choose your game, and go to the Displays tab. Each display you add here belongs to this game.

Screenshot to capture The Displays tab listing a game's displays, with the editor for the selected display open on the right.

Add a display

  1. On the Displays tab, select Add Display.
  2. Give it a clear name, like "Main Wall Screen" or "Hint TV."
  3. Choose a template — Countdown for a screen that shows the timer and hints, or Blank for a screen you control entirely yourself.
  4. Set the orientation and aspect ratio to match the physical screen.
  5. Save. The display can now be opened in a browser, or bound to a real screen via a hardware bridge.
Screenshot to capture The Add Display flow showing the name field, the Countdown and Blank template choice, and the orientation and aspect-ratio options.

Templates

ARC gives you two starting points:

  • Countdown — the standard player screen. It shows the countdown clock and the hints staff send, and it can play your intro, outro, and ambient video. This is what most rooms use.
  • Blank — an empty canvas with no built-in layout. Use it when you want to drive everything from automations and pushed content rather than the standard countdown look.

Orientation and aspect ratio

Set these to match the real screen so nothing is cut off or stretched:

  • Orientation — Landscape, Portrait, or Portrait flipped, for screens mounted on their side.
  • Aspect ratio — match the proportions of the physical screen.

Match the real screen

Set orientation and aspect ratio to the actual screen before you fine-tune the appearance. The layout tools position elements relative to the screen shape, so getting this right first saves rework.

Appearance layers

A Countdown display is built from layers you can position and style on the Appearance tab. The main layers are:

  • Clock — the countdown timer itself.
  • Hint area — where the hints staff send appear.
  • Timer bar — a graphical progress bar that drains as time runs out.
  • Background — the backdrop behind everything, an image or color.

Each element has position, opacity, and style settings, so you can match the screen to your room’s theme.

Screenshot to capture The display Appearance tab showing the layer list — Clock, Hint area, Timer bar, Background — and the position and style controls for the selected layer.

Binding a display to hardware

A display you’ve designed needs a real screen to show on. ARC connects a display to a physical screen through a hardware bridge:

  • a Raspberry Pi running the display role (a room kiosk), or
  • a Windows Bridge (a kiosk on a Windows PC).

On the display’s Hardware tab, set Driven by to the bridge that runs the screen. Once bound, that physical screen shows this display whenever the game runs. Staff can also Launch Display from the control page to open it in a browser tab.

Set up the hardware bridge first

The Raspberry Pi and Windows Bridge are business-wide hardware you add once under System → Connections and configure on the Raspberry Pi and Windows Bridge page. After a bridge is set up, it appears here as something a display can be Driven by.

Screenshot to capture The display Hardware tab showing the Driven by selector with a Raspberry Pi display role and a Windows Bridge listed.

Reset displays

A game can show its device reset checklist on chosen displays during a reset, so staff resetting the room can see what’s left. You pick which displays show that checklist; this ties into the Game Reset System staff use between games.

Where to go next