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Tò He Docs

Vision & scope

Why

Casual mini-game portals are full of ads and interruptions. Tò He is a calm alternative: a handful of small games, no ads, no tracking, playable in a phone browser in seconds — and a learning project for building a durable technical foundation. It began as one family’s corner and is now open to anyone the owner shares it with.

The name comes from tò he, the Vietnamese children’s toy figurines made of coloured rice dough: small, bright and shaped quickly. Each game here is one such figurine, shaped quickly from the same dough.

Who it is for

Everyone is first of all a player — one person, followed through one life with Tò He:

flowchart LR
  arrive([Opens a link<br/>or finds a page]) --> play[Plays at once,<br/>no account]
  play --> keep[Keeps the progress<br/>in an account]
  keep --> invite[Brings someone in<br/>with a link]
  invite --> arrive
WhoNeeds
A playerOpen and play in seconds, without signing up; a name only when others will see it; an account only when it is worth it — to keep progress, play on another phone, appear on a board; a link that brings a friend to the same table or the same game.
A familyProfiles for each person on one account; children pick a picture, have no password, and play behind the settings their parent chose.
The owner, who runs itA foundation that stays stable for years; a console to run the platform; games that can be added fast, often with AI help; a codebase that is pleasant to review.
A developer or an AI agentDocs that explain intent, contracts that are checked by machines, one obvious way to do things.

What it must be good at

  1. Instant play on a phone — the first game visible within a few seconds, without an account; installable as a PWA; playable offline after the first visit.
  2. Reaching someone with a link — a link from a chat app leads straight to the right table or game, on Android, iPhone and inside the chat app’s browser.
  3. Many small games, one place — a shared catalog, profiles, saves and scores across all games, and public boards that only hold results the platform trusts (ADR 0029).
  4. Fast, reliable game creation — a new game from a one-paragraph idea to “playable on a phone” in an afternoon, with most of the work done by an AI agent following these docs and passing the automated checks.
  5. Technology freedom per game — Canvas, DOM, Phaser, PixiJS, Godot web exports… as long as the game honours the Game Contract.

Non-goals

  • Ads, in-app purchases, monetisation of any kind.
  • Tracking people: no third-party analytics or scripts; the platform counts totals, never a person.
  • Free-text chat, social feeds, content people upload. Online rooms offer preset reactions only.
  • Real-time action multiplayer. Turn-based games at one table across phones are a goal: online rooms, ADR 0016.
  • Native apps. The installed PWA is the app; a store listing that wraps it may be considered later, with an ADR.
  • Scale beyond what one API instance serves (ADR 0016).

Go / no-go

The project continues past the walking skeleton only if all of these hold:

  • A child in the family plays a real game on a real phone, with a profile, synced saves, and it still works with the API turned off.
  • An AI agent builds a second game from these docs alone and it passes conformance with little help.
  • The owner reads these docs and finds that they describe the intended design.
  • Maintaining it still feels like fun, not a chore.