Houseparty is an application made for video communication, which has gained massive popularity ever since the lockdown period began. As the application was designed with more spontaneous, casual conversations in mind, it’s no wonder it’s so well-liked among the younger generations, especially when you take into account the perk of having interesting in-call games just one click away.
In case you want to utilize this fun application as well, here are all the basics you simply must know to efficiently use Houseparty:
Table of Contents
Starting video calls and messages
Firstly, download the appropriate Houseparty application for your operating system, whether it’s iOS or Android, and create a personal account with your necessary information.
The application will then provide you with the opportunity to add some friends. After the specific people you’ve selected to add as friends have accepted the requests, you can then begin communicating with them through the application:
- Tap on the smiling emoji icon, and then select My Friends.
- There, select a friend’s username.
- If you wish to begin a video call with someone, press the Call tab, or press on Say Hi to tell someone you wish to start talking to them. If you wish, you could also tap the Facemail icon to record and send them a message in the form of a video, or even press the Pass a Note button to send a text message if they’re not yet online.
- To leave an ongoing call at any time, press the X button located in the lower part of your screen.
Note: Whenever you begin a video call with someone, you will be placed into a ‘room’ together automatically. Unfortunately, other users of the Houseparty application will have the option of entering certain rooms, even when they’re not invited. If you want to prevent this from happening, you can press the lock button to maintain privacy in any of your rooms.
Inviting other people into a room
In case you wish to invite other friends into your rooms, however, even if they are currently locked, just follow these steps:
- Press the plus button in the upper part of your screen.
- Here, find any friends you’d like to invite, and then press the circle beside their names.
- Finally, press Invite to the Room. The people who you’ve chosen will then receive notifications to join your room.
The Houseparty application works by notifying your friends that your status is now updated to ‘online’ each time you launch it. To prevent this from happening, simply follow these steps to change your settings:
- Press the smiling emoji icon, and then click on Manage Notifications.
- Locate the ‘Send Out My Notifications’ option, and flip the switch to off.
- If you are currently using iOS, you could also press and hold the Houseparty application icon before opening it. Here, choose to ‘Sneak into the House’. That way, none of your friends will actually get those ‘online’ notifications.
In case you are currently on a video call, but you want to hide your audio or video feed for whatever reason, just follow these steps:
- On Android, simply press the camera symbol to disable (and later enable) your video. On iOS, press the 3 dots in the lower part of your screen, and choose to Disable Camera.
- To mute your audio on both platforms, just press the microphone icon located in the lower part of your screen.
Playing games on the app
Another cool feature of the Houseparty application is the opportunity to play interesting games with your pals during the video chatting sessions. If you want to have some fun, here’s how you could find and play in-app games:
- After you’ve entered a room together with all of your friends, press the dice icon in the upper part of your screen. You will then see a list of all available games.
- There, just click to select a game, and start playing it with your friends.
Using Houseparty on your computer
In case you’re using a Mac computer, you could also download the Houseparty application to your device through the computer’s App Store. If you’re currently on Windows or other OSs, however, you can download Houseparty’s extension for Chrome, which you could use through the Google Chrome web browser.
Although all of these applications might look slightly different, the process of using them is still quite similar, as described above.
And there you have it; all the basic aspects of the Houseparty application you should know. Hopefully, this detailed guide will allow you to start utilizing the app, and enjoy talking away with your friends.
