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.
Add a display
- On the Displays tab, select Add display.
- Give it a clear Display name, like "Main Wall Screen" or "Hint TV."
- Choose a Display type — Countdown, Media, or Interactive — and a Template to start from.
- Under Display hardware, set the Aspect ratio and Orientation to match the physical screen.
- Select Add display. It can now be opened in a browser, or bound to a real screen through a hardware bridge.
Display types
ARC gives you three kinds of player screen, each with its own editor:
- 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.
- Media — a fullscreen image or video, with an optional separate version shown while the game is running. Good for a themed backdrop or a prop screen.
- Interactive — a touchscreen or tablet players tap. You build screens of buttons, images, and hotspots, and choose what each button does.
Each type has a Template to start from. Countdown offers Countdown (Basic) or Blank if you’d rather build from nothing; Media and Interactive each have a single starting template, Media (Basic) and Interactive (Basic).
Orientation and aspect ratio
Set these to match the real screen so nothing is cut off or stretched. They live in the Display settings drawer, under Display hardware:
- 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 position and style on the canvas. Add Layer offers:
- Timer, Analog Clock, Stopwatch, and Timer Bar — the different ways to show time passing.
- Text, Media, Shape, and Overlay — the decorative pieces.
- Under Hints: Hint Message, Hint Media, and Hint Icons — where the hints staff send appear.
Each layer can be shown, hidden, locked, duplicated, reordered, and copied to other views. The Appearance entry in the right rail holds the Display theme — the base background and font used by every view — and each view can override that background with a color, image, or video.
A Countdown display has five views you switch between in the toolbar: Idle, Timer, Hint, Success, and Failure. Timer is always on; Idle and Hint are optional, and Success and Failure are switched on and off together.
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).
In the Display settings drawer, under Display hardware, set Driven by to the bridge that runs the screen. A display with nothing chosen reads Unassigned. Once bound, that physical screen shows this display whenever the game runs. Staff can also open a display in a browser tab from the control page.
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.
The two drawers: one display, or all of them
The Displays toolbar has two gear buttons, and the difference between them matters.
Display settings edits the display you currently have selected: its name, display type and template, hardware settings, which views it uses, and — for an interactive display — what it does after a game reset. It also holds this display’s own Intro & outro override, so one screen can behave differently from the rest.
All displays edits settings that apply to every display in this game:
- Intro & outro — the intro and outro video, which displays each one plays on, and the media volume.
- Ambient audio — the background track, which displays it plays on, its playback mode, what it does during hints, and its volume.
- After game reset — Show reset checklist and the displays that show it, so staff resetting the room can see what’s left. This ties into the reset staff run between games.
Editing a display saves itself
Editing an existing display auto-saves — the drawer shows a Saving / Saved chip instead of a Done button. Only adding a display is an explicit step.
Where to go next
- Media — the intro, outro, and hint media these displays show.
- Game settings — what the intro/outro, ambient, and volume settings in All displays do.
- System → Raspberry Pi and Windows Bridge — set up the hardware that drives a physical screen.
- Displays and audio on the control page — how staff launch, clear, and refresh displays during a game.