Bawaal went live on the web on 17 October 2026. From 1.0.3 on, every fix and every feature ships as its own numbered build, and each one is listed here: what changed, why, and who found it. Bawaal is made in India by Vidit Chopra.
How we ship: one feature or fix per build. No silent changes.
Gol mein baitho: Aamne Saamne, a bottle that knows where you sit, and a Bahi for your gang
iPhone and iPad (TestFlight build 10) · Android (internal testing) · Web
Circle: tell Bawaal once who sits where. Turns, hand-offs and teams follow the real circle, and a late arrival joins with one tap.
The goli soda bottle picks fairly from the real circle in 11 games. A person always starts it, and nothing can be tapped before it lands.
Aamne Saamne is game 13, a face-to-face pair game. The goli soda bottle picks two people sitting across from each other, and the card is written for that pair and shown to both.
Gang ki Bahi remembers your gang on this phone only: nights, kept awards, titles and a darja that grows. Next time, Rematch brings everyone back in one tap. It can be switched off or deleted in Settings.
The Aaj ka Bawaal ticket sums up the night, and the Mahaul meter on every result shows the night building up. It never goes down, and nobody is ranked last.
Sar Pe Phone: a Tilt test makes sure both directions work on this phone before the first round, the edges glow as you tilt, and PASS and SAHI can be told apart without colour.
A simpler Home and lobbies, cards that never overlap at any text size, drawn art in place of emoji, Settings in four pages, a phone that can read a card aloud, and iPad Split View.
Why: A design review of every screen showed that groups sit in a circle, but the app didn't know it. Now every turn uses where people sit, and the app remembers the gang for next time.
iPhone and iPad (TestFlight build 9) · Android (internal testing) · Web
Sar Pe Phone: tilting the phone up to pass now works. Tilt is read from the direction of gravity, head back needs less tilt than the nod for Sahi, a lean during the 3-2-1 no longer makes passing harder, and a quick flick counts. Sensitivity is now Thoda, Normal or Zyada.
Sar Pe Phone hides the word while a round is paused, so the guesser can't read it through the pause screen.
Sach Ya Dare's results no longer crown a Saza King or Queen or count anyone's skips. Awards come only from cards people did.
On small iPhones, "Samajh gaye ✓" sits at the top of a game's three steps, so tapping it never starts the game by mistake.
On Android, this is the first test build since 1.0.4, so it also brings everything from 1.1.0 to 1.3.0.
Found in: release testing (tilt, on a real iPhone) and QA pass
Reel bana do: switch it on in Sar Pe Phone and the front camera films the gang giving clues. After the round, Bawaal makes a short reel with every word and the score. Only that switch asks for the camera and microphone, the reel stays on your phone and is never uploaded, and unsaved reels are deleted after 12 hours.
Bawaal is a real iPad app now: Home shows every game at once in landscape, setup screens use two columns, and cards grow big enough to read across a room. Secret words stay small and close to whoever is holding it.
Beech mein: lay the phone or iPad flat in the middle and the card shows twice, once for each side of the circle, with buttons on both edges. In Pakka Tu, Maine Kabhi Nahi, Ye Ya Woh, Sach Ya Dare, Hukum and Antakshari's scoreboard.
Table pe: on an iPad, Sar Pe Phone stands up facing the gang and never starts a round by itself.
Kaise khelein?: every game shows its three steps the first time you open it.
Pakka Tu, Maine Kabhi Nahi, Ye Ya Woh and Sach Ya Dare each play their own way now: point on 3-2-1, fingers down until the last one standing, a room-split bar and a spinning bottle. Every award reaches the Aaj ka Bawaal card.
Chor Kaun? and Gangs of Ghar: everyone gets a turn at the secret role before anyone gets it twice.
New decks can arrive without an app update, and Home shows them as "Naya aaya". Home also tells you when a newer Bawaal is out, without ever stopping a game.
Bawaal follows your phone's text size, VoiceOver reads every new card and result, and invites and shares open your phone's own share sheet.
The iPhone and Android apps now send anonymous crash reports (no names, cards or settings), on unless you switch them off in Settings, Privacy, "Crash reports bhejo". Usage sharing is a separate switch there, off unless you turn it on, and it counts only app opens and finished rounds. Settings, About says who makes Bawaal and how to reach him.
Why: Groups sit in a circle, many of them round an iPad, and the funniest round of the night deserves a replay. New cards shouldn't wait for an app update, and crash reports let us fix a problem before the next party.
Pick "Sangeet" on the first screen and type the couple's names (optional). 201 Couple Special cards put them into Pakka Tu, the Shoe Game, Fatafat, Sach Ya Dare and Ye Ya Woh, every second card. The names stay on your phone.
Do team, ek score: the team games (Sar Pe Phone, Bina Bole, Antakshari and Ulta Pulta) play as two sides with one score for the whole night. Ladkewale vs Ladkiwale at a sangeet, Bade vs Bachche with the family, your own team names anywhere else. The Aaj ka Bawaal card says which side won.
Sangeet ka program: three short games with a big timer and the sides' score between games, made for whoever holds the mic.
The shaadi cards now stay in season until 14 March, the last wedding date of the season, and the New Year cards lead the festive banner from 12 December.
Bawaal's own look: every game has a drawn icon instead of an emoji, and Home carries the Bawaal wordmark, our mascot The Ooh and the Confetti Chaos pattern.
Test builds open with a short welcome and this build's notes (Settings, Beta notes), and testers are asked "Kaisa raha?" after every party night. People who install from the App Store never see any of this.
Why: Wedding season is the biggest party season after Diwali, and sangeet games are played side against side, run by whoever holds the mic.
Home now opens on "Aaj ka occasion?": house party, cousins and family, sangeet, Diwali night, office or college. Pick one and Bawaal lines up a playlist of games for it, and "Party shuru" starts the first one.
First time? "Pehli baar? Yahan se shuru." puts a Sar Pe Phone word on screen in two taps.
The spice level for the whole room sits in one Vibe chip on Home and in every game, so everyone can see the current level at a glance.
Diwali specials are in season: festive cards are dealt first, and Diwali night leads the occasions.
Why: Bawaal is made for Indian get-togethers, so the first screen now starts from yours, and a new player reaches a first card in seconds.
If a screen fails, Bawaal shows a calm "Kuch gadbad ho gayi" screen instead of closing. "Game pe wapas" brings back the card you were on, and Home is one tap away.
If Bawaal closes by itself, the next time you open it Home asks once whether to send a short report. You see every word first (app version, phone type, which screen, the error), never names or cards, and you send it yourself.
On the web, a game that fails to load after an update lands on the same calm screen, and one tap reloads it.
Bawaal still collects no data. A report leaves the phone only when you send it.
Why: A crash should never end the party, and we want to hear about every one from the first week without adding any tracking.
After the second round of a night, the results screen asks "Kaisa raha?". One tap saves your answer, and "Aur batao" adds what worked or what broke.
Notes are saved on the phone first, so they work with no signal and survive a restart. Nothing is sent by itself: you see the exact text, then send it by email or any app, or copy it.
Card ⋯ › Report now opens the same preview, so it works on a phone with no email account set up. Before, it did nothing there.
Bawaal still collects no data. There is no server, no account and no analytics.
Why: Real parties are the real test. This is how the people who play Bawaal tell us what happened.
After a full close and reopen, the Continue card on Home could be missing, and a Sar Pe Phone round could start with no word on screen while the clock ran.
Every entrance animation now ends in a state the app itself holds, so a card never depends on an animation finishing to be visible.
New check: 10 cold relaunches, with the card and the word visible every time.
Generated from the build notes at every release. "QA pass" and "release testing" are our own checks before a build goes out; a beta tester is named only when they told us something and agreed to be credited.
