Mode guide
Relic Putt Party Mode
Four players, one screen, one pass of the phone at a time.
Relic Putt includes a Party mode built for people sitting in the same room. It supports up to four players on a single device, taking turns on the same game. Everything below is about running that session smoothly.
Local turns, not online play
This is the detail people get wrong before they start. Party mode is local: all players share one device and one running game, and control moves between them turn by turn. There is no lobby, no room code and no network matchmaking.
So do not plan a Party session for friends in another city, and do not expect separate screens. The format is closer to handing a controller around than to playing online, and once everyone accepts that, the mode works exactly as intended.
The upside is that the whole thing is instant — no accounts, no invites, no waiting for someone to load. Four people around one screen is the entire setup cost.
Passing the device
Watch for the moment the game announces the next player and hand the device over at that point, not mid-shot and not during the relic choice. Passing at the wrong moment means somebody's aim or relic pick gets made by the wrong person.
Two habits keep this clean. Hold the device yourself when it is not your turn, so there is a single person responsible for timing the handoff. And say the name out loud when you hand it over — the game tells you whose turn is next, and repeating it prevents the two-player shuffle where everyone thinks they just played.
If someone needs a minute, use the pause control rather than rushing the handoff. An interrupted turn is far less annoying to the group than a wasted one.
Setup for a group
Put the device in landscape before the first player takes a turn. The fairway is wide and the wider view helps when two or three people are crowding the same screen; rotating mid-round just makes everyone re-find their bearings.
Plan around the four-player ceiling rather than the group size. If you have five people, the fifth is watching — decide in advance who plays, or run two sessions, instead of discovering the limit after everyone has waited for their turn.
A tablet on a table beats a phone in a hand for a group of three or four. Everyone can see the ball at once, and nobody has to describe what just happened to the person at the back.
Keeping score
Write it down. A sheet of paper or a shared note on a second phone is more reliable than trying to remember four sets of numbers while the game is running, and it keeps the on-screen numbers free to be what they are.
The in-game display is the source of truth for what happens on each hole — use it to check a shot, not to run the standings. Whatever this page or a notebook says, the interface in the game decides.
One practical note for group play: agree before the first hole whether the group is playing strictly or casually. Ties, redos and mulligans are all fine, but they need deciding before the first argument rather than during it.
Everyone should know the loop before the first turn, or the handoffs get messy.