Frequently asked questions

Does everyone need an account?

No. Only the person who sets up a round needs one. Everybody else is a name-only seat in that round — no e-mail address, no password, no sign-up.

A round can run entirely from one device: you pass it around to vote, rather than everyone signing in separately.

You can also mix, per person and with nothing to set up beforehand: anyone who does have an account links their seat to it and votes from their own device.

It also works with no account at all: any running vote can be shared as a link. Whoever receives it picks their name from the participant list and rates the games on their own device — no sign-up. The link shows only the drawn games and who has voted so far, never the votes themselves, and it works only until that vote ends.

Can I get the old look back?

Yes. Spielwirbel now wears „The Table" — dark felt, brass and paper cards. The previous look is called Classic and stays available for good: in the design choice when you first open the app, or any time with the palette icon at the top next to the language, or under Account → Design. The light Ocean, The Programme, set like a theatre programme, the dark The Bridge in cyan and amber, and the light Forest, a leaf-green clearing with fireflies, are there too. Every design does the same things with the same data; each just arranges them its own way.

The design is yours, not the round's — everyone in a round can wear a different one. What the round keeps is its colour marker, which everyone sees, each in their own design. The rounds' former colour schemes and worlds are gone; a round that wore one shows the matching colour marker.

How is the score worked out?

From your ratings — but not as a plain average. The Spielwirbel score weighs each vote before averaging: if somebody does not at all want to play a game, that counts for more than a good rating from somebody else.

The reason is simple: take two games with the same average. Everybody is fine with one of them, and at the other there is a person sitting there who would rather not. Those are two very different recommendations, and the average alone cannot tell them apart.

As long as nobody rated below „could do", the score does not diverge for that reason — and when it does, it says what, right beside it, for example „1× not at all".

There is a second reason it can differ: a game with only a few ratings so far is judged more cautiously. Its score sits closer to the middle of the scale until a few sessions have added up — so a game that collected three top marks on one single night does not permanently outrank everything you have really formed a view on. It works the other way round too: a game you keep putting on the table earns real credit for it, and gets a score even without ratings.

Only a game's own ratings and plays go into its score — never how your other games happen to have done. The same votes and plays therefore produce the same number in every round.

What is the weekly quiz?

The weekly quiz asks new questions about well-known board games every week — how complex a game is, how many players it is for, who designed it, when it came out. The questions are built from BoardGameGeek’s game data, so categories, mechanisms and names appear exactly as BoardGameGeek lists them, in English.

Each answer counts as soon as you give it and cannot be changed afterwards. A new round starts every Monday. You play with an account; only you and your friends see your result on the leaderboard. How long answers are kept is set out in the privacy policy.

Where do the badges come from, and can they be lost again?

The badges under Trophies follow from the sessions you have recorded — for the round and for each person: the first win, ten sessions, a game that gets played again and again. Nothing separate is stored for them; Spielwirbel reads them off your sessions every time you open them.

That is why a badge disappears when you delete the session that brought it — it was not earned then. A few badges are secret and only show their name once somebody earns them. What a session newly brought is shown on its result, and the History notes it under that session.

On top of that, your account has five badges across all your rounds: Sessions, Wins, Rounds, Years and Games. They are on your profile, and only you and your friends see them. When you reach a new tier of Sessions, Wins or Games, your friends see it in their Friends feed — just the name and the tier, never the round. If you have switched your record off for friends, both stay hidden.

Will you keep e-mailing me?

No. We only write when someone needs an answer from you: a round invitation or a friend request. On top of that there are the usual account e-mails (for example confirm your address, reset your password, confirm an address change).

There is no newsletter and no advertising, and we never write to you about what your friends are playing. You will not get more than one message an hour — if several requests arrive, we combine them. You can switch both kinds off individually in your account.

Is it really free? What is the catch?

There isn't one. There is no paid tier, no feature behind a paywall, and no advertising.

There are no analytics or tracking scripts either, and no third-party scripts are loaded — there is simply nothing here to resell.

So what is the donate button for?

Donations are voluntary and unlock nothing — donating gets you no extra features, and not donating costs you none.

Where it goes: servers, the database, the domain and sending mail cost money every month, and running, maintaining and building Spielwirbel costs time. It is developed on the side and paid for out of pocket — a donation is simply a thank you for that.

The app contains no payment code and embeds no third-party widget: nothing is loaded from (or sent to) the donation platform until you click the link.

Is there an app?

Yes and no. Spielwirbel can be added to your home screen from the browser and behaves like an app afterwards: its own icon, its own window, and it works offline.

The Account screen has a section for it — either an install button or the two Share-menu steps, depending on your browser.

There is no App Store or Google Play listing.

Is it only for board games?

The title search is: when you add a game, the title field searches BoardGameGeek and fills in the title, cover art and player count for you.

The shelf itself takes anything. Typing a game in by hand works just as well — it can then be whatever you like, it just won't fill itself in.

Can we bring our plays from BG Stats or BoardGameGeek?

Yes. In a round's Chronik, „Import plays“ brings your past plays in — from an export file of the BG Stats app or, with a BGG name linked to your account, from the plays you logged on BoardGameGeek.

You choose which plays to bring and match each person once: to a member of the round, as a new member, as a guest or not at all. Each play becomes a finished session on its date, with winners and points — nothing gets rated. A second import skips what is already there.

The BG Stats file is read on your device only and never uploaded.

Can we get our data back out?

Yes, any time, by yourselves. In a round's Settings, “Export data (CSV + JSON)” downloads a zip file: tables for the games, sessions, ratings, points, members and tags that open in any spreadsheet, plus the complete round as a JSON file. Anyone with access to the round can do it.

For your account's own data, get in touch through the contact form. How that works is described in the privacy policy.

You can also send individual plays to BG Stats once you switch that on in your account: on a finished session's results screen the link sits under the winners and hands the play across.

Where is our data stored?

That depends on who runs this instance. Which providers are used and where data is stored is set out in full in the privacy policy — deliberately not restated here in different words, so that there is only one binding version.

Where can I talk with other people about Spielwirbel?

In these forum threads you can ask questions, share ideas and give feedback — we read along and reply there.

• BoardGameGeek

For anything you would rather not post publicly, use the contact form.

What happens if you stop maintaining this?

The source code is public and readable: github.com/ChulioZ/spielwirbel. It may be self-hosted for noncommercial purposes — so anyone who wants to can keep Spielwirbel running on their own server.

That is not a promise that the service runs forever. It is a promise that it does not disappear with one person.