Everyone's in the room, the quiz is ready, and the only screen worth looking at is the TV on the wall. No laptop, no cable, and nobody wants to huddle around a phone.

You don't need any of that. A live quiz runs on a web page, so the whole job is getting that page onto the TV - and the phone in your hand can usually do it in about two minutes.

Here's how, depending on what you're holding and what the TV is.

First, the thing that makes this simple

A live quiz has two halves. There's the big screen - questions, timer, leaderboard - and there are the phones, which are the buzzers. Only the big screen needs casting. Everyone else just joins on their own phone as normal.

So you're not casting a game. You're casting one web page. Everything below is three ways to do that.

Option 1: Google Cast from an Android phone

If you have a Chromecast plugged in - or a TV with Google Cast built in, which now includes recent Samsung and LG sets — this is the fastest route.

1. Open the Google Home app.

2. Go to Favourites or Devices, then tap and hold the tile for your TV or Chromecast.

3. Choose Cast, then Cast my screen.

4. Load the quiz's host screen in your browser and start the game. The join code appears on the TV.

A few practical notes. You need Android 8.0 or later, and your phone and the TV have to be on the same Wi-Fi - that's how casting finds the screen. Mirroring your whole phone also mirrors your notifications, so flip on Do Not Disturb before a room full of people sees your messages. And screen casting eats battery: Google's own advice is to turn on battery saver before you start.

If you'd rather use a laptop, desktop Chrome does the same thing more neatly: More → Cast, save, and share → Cast…, then pick your device. That casts just the tab, so nothing else on your machine ends up on the wall.

Option 2: AirPlay from an iPhone

An iPhone can't mirror its screen to a Chromecast. That's a genuine iOS limitation, not a setting you've missed - screen mirroring to Google Cast devices only works from Android and from desktop Chrome.

On iPhone you want AirPlay instead, which needs an Apple TV, a TV with AirPlay 2 built in, or a Roku that supports it.

1. Open the quiz's host screen in Safari.

2. Swipe into Control Centre and tap Screen Mirroring.

3. Choose your Apple TV or AirPlay-compatible TV.

4. Start the game.

Same Do Not Disturb advice, for the same reason.

If there's no AirPlay in the room, borrow an Android phone or a laptop for the host screen and let the iPhone play along as a normal player. The big screen doesn't have to be driven by your phone.

Option 3: Skip casting - use the TV's own browser

People forget this one, and it's often the least hassle.

Samsung TVs have an Internet browser built into Tizen - open it, type the address, done. No casting, no host phone tied up, no mirroring lag.

On Android TV and Google TV it's a bit more work. Chrome isn't available on TV - the TV Play Store is a filtered catalogue and the phone version of Chrome isn't in it. There are TV-built browsers you can install (TV Bro, Puffin TV Browser and BrowseHere are the usual picks), and they work fine once they're on.

The real trade-off with any of these is typing a URL using a D-pad remote, which is genuinely unpleasant. Worth doing once for a room you'll run games in regularly. Not worth it for a one-off - cast instead.

Getting it running in about two minutes

Load the host screen on whatever's driving the TV - cast it, mirror it, or open it on the TV itself.
Put the join code on screen. That's the entire onboarding.
Everyone joins on their own phone. No install, no account.
Start once most of the room is in. Latecomers can join a game already running, and a game in motion pulls people in faster than an announcement does.

What actually plays well on a big screen

Once the screen's sorted, pick something built to be read from the back of the room. A few that work well cast to a TV:

• AI Quiz - type a topic and it writes the whole quiz in seconds, in any language. It's the closest thing here to a Kahoot-style round, and it needs no prep at all, which matters when you've just spent two minutes wrestling with a TV.

• Trivia Grid - Jeopardy-style category grid with built-in buzzers, up to 25 teams. Reads very clearly on a TV because the grid is the whole interface.

• Logo Quiz Race - distorted brand logos appear and teams race to buzz in, gambling on how early they commit. Visual, dramatic, and made for a shared screen.

• Emoji Guess - emoji puzzles on the big screen, answers on phones. Nothing to teach and no language barrier, so it lands with mixed rooms. There's a Kids Mode too.

• Letter Storm - letters drift across the screen and teams race to build words before the clock runs out. Up to 25 teams, works in any language.

All of them run in a browser, which means the setup above is the only setup - cast the page, share the code, play.

What to try next

If your TV has no smart features at all, the no-cable version of this problem is the companion guide. And if you'd rather run something built for a browser from the start, the games catalogue has all of the above and a few dozen more. Everything's in an experimental, testing phase at the moment, so it's a good time to try a couple and tell us what worked in your room.

Games for Crowds is a browser-based platform for playing group games together on one shared screen - no apps, no downloads, just phones and a display.