Phones down.
Everyone in.
One table, one session. Every phone locks together, iPhone and Android. It opens for one person only when everyone at the table says yes.
1:24:09
All four still in
Leaving is always allowed.
The table will know.
The phone stack, with teeth.
You finally got the people you love into one room. Ten minutes later everyone is half gone, thumbing a feed under the table. Nobody wants this. Everybody does it anyway.
Piling the phones in the middle already works, because the table enforces it, not an app. Its weakness is that it has no teeth. One buzz, one "I just need to check something," and the pile dissolves. Nothing remembers who folded. Pact gives the table teeth and a memory.
Three beats
-
Tonight's pact
3 of 4 stacked in
TBL-492
YMO+1Waiting on Lina
01Stack in
One person starts a pact. A code appears. Everyone scans, first names only, no accounts. When the last person is in, the table locks together.
-
0:47:12
All four still in
YMOL02Go dark
Every phone shows the same screen. Time present, who is in, one small flame. Flip any phone on the table and you see the table, never someone's apps.
-
M Maya asks the table 23s to answer
Expecting a call from the sitter
- YousefAllowed
- OmarAllowed
- YouDeciding
Needs everyone
03Ask the table
Need your phone for something real? One tap, pick a reason. Everyone has to say yes. You get five minutes on a countdown the whole table can see, then it locks again.
Glass, not steel.
No app can imprison a phone, and one that tried shouldn't exist. Picture someone with a controlling partner: the exit has to be there. So Pact does not pretend.
You can always leave, in two taps. But the flame dies on every screen, the recap names you, and you are buying dessert. The lock is honest friction and total visibility. The table does the enforcing. Pact gives it teeth and keeps the score.
- Always leaveableTwo taps, broadcast to the table. Never buried, never disabled.
- Emergency calls never blockedCalling and SOS stay open at the operating-system level, on both platforms.
- Nothing to log intoA pact is first names and a timer. It deletes itself in 24 hours.
Nobody owns the table.
Forest is solo and soft. Opal, Jomo and ScreenZen are focus tools for one person at a desk. Brick and Unpluq sell hardware. The phone-stack game has the right soul and no software.
Pact is the one built for a group that is physically together: no accounts, both platforms, and a lock that opens only by consent. That is the wedge.
The app should feel like it
wants to be put down.