WikiOnline
Playing online
All five modes and chao trading now play against another person — over the internet with a room code, or over your own Wi-Fi with no server at all.
Updated
All five modes play against another person, and so does trading and gifting chao. Each works two ways — over the internet with a room code, or over LAN between two devices on the same Wi-Fi.
| Mode | Playable against a person since |
|---|---|
| Chao Board | 1.2.0 |
| Chao Clash | 1.2.0 |
| Chao Race | 1.4.0 |
| The Chao Arena | 1.4.0 |
| Chao Karate | 1.4.0 |
Nothing you win in a live match is kept — no rings, no records, no trophies, toys, chest gems or XP, in any of the five. The results sheet says it was a friendly, so a missing prize does not read as a broken reward.
Neither player owns the match. Both lock in, both send what they want, and both work out the same race or fight from the pair, so the second player’s stage or course is never quietly ignored.
Room codes
| Length | 6 characters |
| Alphabet | Digits and letters, with I, L, O and U removed |
| Case | Insensitive — k7mp2q and K7MP2Q are the same room |
| Idle timeout | 10 minutes with nobody in it |
The removed letters are the ones misread as digits. Typing I gives you 1 and
O gives you 0, because those are the substitutions people actually make
reading a code off a screen.
One player opens a room and reads out the code; the other types it in. A room seats two.
Over LAN
Both devices must be on the same Wi-Fi. There is no code to type: the app lists the devices it can see, and you pick one.
For a trade, the player you pick is the host — you deposit into their room, and their app notices the chao land and offers to join.
Trading and gifting
Two shapes, and they are different decisions:
| Trade | Gift | |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | Both ways | One way |
| Needs something back | Yes | No |
| Ends when | Both sides agree | Anyone holding the code claims it |
| Can be withdrawn | Until you agree | Any time before it is claimed |
A room is one or the other from its first deposit and cannot change halfway through.
An unfinished trade returns your chao. A deposit that is never completed comes back automatically after 24 hours.
A chao cannot be in two trades at once. Deposits are checked against a record that spans every room, so the same chao cannot be put into two rooms and handed to two different people.
You see what you are agreeing to. Before either side commits, both see a summary of the other’s chao and a fingerprint of it. Agreeing is a deliberate press on a table that shows you the chao you are about to accept.
Playing a mode against someone
All five run the same way: open a room, share the code, and play. Over LAN, pick the device instead.
The gun waits for both players. Each device starts its own countdown once it has finished loading, so a phone that loads quickly no longer watches the finish while a PC is still compiling shaders.
A live race is two racers, with no AI filling the grid.
The Arena asks both players when a fainted chao has to be replaced. That side used to be the computer, so the switch was made for you.
Chao Race and Karate send nothing at all after the gun: both devices run the same match from the same starting point, so the distance between you costs nothing.
No part of a chao’s record travels over a versus connection. Every record a save writes comes from that player’s own ride or their own fight — so nothing about a match can change the other person’s chao.
Restart is not offered from the pause menu during a versus match.
Related
- Chao Board: the courses, the gear and how a race is scored.
- Chao Clash: the venues, the ladder and the ten elemental weapons.
- Chao Race and the Chao Arena.
- Life cycle: what a traded chao brings with it.