Playing Zada games on a slow connection or an older phone
Many of our players are on mobile data and mid-range phones, so we measure everything by that standard. This post lists what each game actually downloads, what it loads only when needed, and a few settings that make a real difference on a weak connection or an older device.
What each game downloads
- Doodle Wheels: the whole game, including its physics engine, is under 150 KB. On a 3G connection that is about a second. Nothing else is fetched during play.
- Hand Fighter: the game itself is tiny. The hand-tracking model is the heavy part, a few megabytes, and it is only requested when you start a match with hand tracking turned on. Play with keyboard or touch buttons and it never downloads.
- The website pages around the games are light too. The largest thing on the site is the short preview video on the Hand Fighter page, and it only streams if you scroll to it.
Your browser keeps the game files after the first visit, so the second time you play, almost nothing is downloaded at all.
If Hand Fighter feels slow
Hand tracking is the most demanding thing either game does. If your fighter reacts late or the picture stutters:
- Tap the hand icon in the match screen to turn tracking off. The on-screen buttons appear and the game runs on any phone.
- Close other tabs and apps. The tracker wants the processor to itself.
- Tap the camera preview to shrink or hide it. Drawing the preview costs a little every frame.
- Play in good light. In dim rooms the camera raises its exposure time, which lowers the frame rate before the game even sees the picture.
If Doodle Wheels stutters
Doodle Wheels runs a physics simulation, and very complex drawings cost more than simple ones. If the game hitches after you draw, your shape probably has many points and sharp concave angles. Draw a little slower with fewer wiggles. The game already thins every drawing to 24 points, so you will not lose the shape you intended.
Online play on mobile data
Online matches use very little data, a few kilobytes per second, because only inputs and positions travel between players, never video. What matters is stability, not speed. If a room won't connect, the online play guide lists the usual causes. The most common on phones is a VPN or a "private DNS" setting that hides the address the connection needs.
Landscape, and the home screen
Both games are designed for a phone held sideways. In portrait the play area shrinks and the buttons crowd together. Rotate the phone, and if the picture doesn't rotate, check the orientation lock in your phone's quick settings.
You can also add the site to your home screen. In Chrome on Android open the menu and choose "Add to Home screen"; in Safari on iPhone tap the share button and choose "Add to Home Screen". You get an icon like an app, and the games open in a full-screen window without the browser bar. The games still need a connection for the first load, but the icon makes coming back a single tap.
A note on ads
Ads appear on the site's pages, not inside the games, so they never compete with the game for your data or your processor during play. If a page ever feels heavy, tell us on the contact page; a slow page is a bug as far as we are concerned.