Hotseat (multiplayer mode)

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Hotseat or hot seat is a multiplayer mode provided by some turn-based video games, which allows two or more players to play on the same device by taking turns playing the game. The name hotseat comes situations such as computer use where the players may trade places occupying the same chair to control the game.

Hotseat play allows players to play a multiplayer game with only one copy of the game or only one device to play it on. Since hotseat play is turn-based by nature, the duration of a game may extend beyond that of a real-time networked multiplayer game. Some games allow hotseat and networked players to compete with each other in the same game, while maintaining turn-based play.

In some games with hotseat multiplayer function, an element of the competitive multiplayer gameplay may be that not all information is available to all players - for example, where a player is moving his or her pieces in a strategy game. This requires that the players not all be able to see the screen at once (more practical with handheld games) and is sometimes facilitated by password protecting each player's turn.

• Play-by-mail game
• Split screen gaming