Phalanx
EN

Engineered for the field ยท not the app store

Built by engineers.
Who happen to play airsoft.

A live tactical map that lasts the whole game. We're field-testing now - install the beta and help us break it.

Download the beta APK

// It's ATAK. The air support's just not coming.

No TAK server, no config files, no 40-page manual - scan a QR and you're on the map.

Download the beta APK

Current beta build SHA-256: shown when the build is published Android 7+

Checksum - verify the file you got is the one we built.

Asks for: location (the map), camera (QR join). Does not ask for: contacts, storage, microphone.

Installing the APK (what your phone will say)
  1. Your browser flags the download as unfamiliar and asks if you want it anyway - tap through (Chrome calls the button 'Download anyway'). Every APK from outside the Play Store gets this warning, not just ours.
  2. Android asks permission before your browser can install anything outside the Play Store. Allow it - if it doesn't ask on its own, it's under Settings > Apps > your browser > Install unknown apps.
  3. Play Protect scans the app and blocks it as unverified. Android will warn you - we're not on the Play Store yet (the plan is Google Play at launch), that's what a field test is. The checksum above is how you verify us. Tap 'More details', then 'Install anyway'.
  4. First launch asks for two permissions and nothing else: location for the map, camera for the QR join. Grant both and you're a live dot on the field.
QR code linking to the beta APK download
On desktop? Scan with your phone.
  • looks tacticool
  • lasts the whole game
  • a dot, somewhere
  • a dot you can trust
  • 'realtime' buzzword
  • a cadence you set
  • drops on bad signal
  • tells you it dropped

  1. We treat your battery like ammo.

    There's exactly one GPS feed per phone, movement-gated so a player holding a position stops spending power. Positions broadcast straight to your team when it's cheap, and only write to the database on a slow heartbeat. The radio sleeps between real moves instead of screaming every second.

    We're measuring it in the field test right now - the number gets published here, with the setup, good or bad.

    • GPS feeds per device1, movement-gated
    • Fast pathbroadcast, no DB write
    • Durable write~5s snapshot only
    • Standing stillnear-zero radio wakeups

  2. 1 to 15 seconds. Your call, per player.

    Speed and battery trade against each other; that's physics, not a bug. So we made it a knob, not a guess - and it's yours alone. Crank it to 1s for the final push and burn the battery you have left. Coast at 15s for an all-day op. Your battery, your call: every player picks their own cadence, and nobody else's setting touches it.

  3. When we lose someone, we say so.

    A stale dot presented as live gets people 'killed.' So a teammate's dot is only ever as confident as the data behind it. Four states, unmistakable at a glance in bright sun with a gloved thumb.

    GPS is GPS - expect 5-25 m under heavy canopy. What we promise: stale data is never dressed up as fresh.

    • Livefresh position, team colour, moving shows the heading
    • Hitself-declared down, sticks until respawn
    • No signalgreys out at ~22s, told not hidden
    • Lostlast-known intel after 2 min, never mistaken for live

  4. One hold, and the whole field knows.

    SOS lives behind a menu and a hold-to-confirm, so a stray tap can't cry wolf. Trigger it for real and every player on every team gets a field-wide alert. It doesn't replace the marshal, it gets their eyes on you fastest, and it's free for everyone, no exceptions.

    • Triggermenu, then hold-to-confirm
    • Reachfield-wide, every team
    • Costfree, always
    • Rolecomplements the marshal, never replaces the whistle

No signal? Told, not hidden.

A stale dot dressed up as live gets people 'killed' for no reason, so we don't do it. Lose signal and the dot greys out and counts up its age - you always see how old the intel is - then it holds at last-known position after 2 minutes, never mistaken for live. The moment signal's back the dot glides in instead of teleporting, and sharing is session-scoped, so stepping off the map and back on doesn't drop you from the team.

Offline map packs: planned, not in this beta. If your field is a dead zone, tell us - it moves the roadmap.

How it works

  1. Create

    The organizer spins up the game and adds every team, each with its own colour and a printable QR code.

  2. QR join

    Scan the QR, or thumb in the team code. Pick a callsign. No accounts, no signup form - seconds, and you're a live dot on your team's map.

  3. Play

    The whole field moves together: positions, hits, SOS, all of it live for the length of the game.

Try it tonight - two phones, one living room, watch the dots move.

Who's building this

Sky Labs is a two-person product lab in Plovdiv. The one writing this plays. Phalanx exists because every 'tactical map' we tried died by the second engagement.

Read the devlog

Free during the beta. Here's the honest math.

Right now everything is open - any game size, every knob, zero cost. That's the field test, and you're part of it.

At launch: players never pay. Ever. Games up to 20 stay free. Bigger games pay by headcount - because a 40-player Sunday costs us real server money every hour it runs, and the organizer already collects entry fees at the gate. That's the whole business model: we charge the people we cost money, and nobody can buy an advantage.

The beta is live. Sundays are better with a map.

Download the beta APK

Current beta build SHA-256: shown when the build is published Android 7+

Checksum - verify the file you got is the one we built.

Asks for: location (the map), camera (QR join). Does not ask for: contacts, storage, microphone.

Installing the APK (what your phone will say)
  1. Your browser flags the download as unfamiliar and asks if you want it anyway - tap through (Chrome calls the button 'Download anyway'). Every APK from outside the Play Store gets this warning, not just ours.
  2. Android asks permission before your browser can install anything outside the Play Store. Allow it - if it doesn't ask on its own, it's under Settings > Apps > your browser > Install unknown apps.
  3. Play Protect scans the app and blocks it as unverified. Android will warn you - we're not on the Play Store yet (the plan is Google Play at launch), that's what a field test is. The checksum above is how you verify us. Tap 'More details', then 'Install anyway'.
  4. First launch asks for two permissions and nothing else: location for the map, camera for the QR join. Grant both and you're a live dot on the field.
QR code linking to the beta APK download
On desktop? Scan with your phone.

Not ready to sideload? Follow the field test - @phalanx.zone