Nothing to Download, Nothing to Install
There is nothing to download here, and no app to install. You open a web page, sign in, and play. That sounds like a small thing until you have tried to get four relatives onto the same game — at which point it is most of the reason this works at all. Here is what “no download” actually means, and the one thing it costs you.
The whole setup
- Open the browser that is already on your computer, tablet or phone.
- Go to mexicantrain.online.
- Make a free account, or sign in if you have one.
- Play.
That is the complete list. Nothing lands in your Downloads folder, nothing asks for permission to run, and nothing sits on the device afterwards.
What that means in practice
- No app store. No Apple ID prompt, no Google account on the tablet, no wondering whether the thing you are about to install is the right one out of forty results.
- No storage used. Nothing to make room for on a full phone, and nothing to delete later. If you are finished with it, you close the tab.
- No updates. The version you load is the current version, always. There is no update prompt, and nobody in your game can be stuck on an old build while everyone else has a new one.
- No permissions and no admin rights. You are opening a web page, so a locked-down work laptop, a school computer or a library machine can run it when it could not install anything.
- No uninstall. There is nothing to remove, and nothing left behind if you never come back.
It also means the hardest part of playing with family — getting everyone set up — is a link and a six-letter code, not a phone call about which app store button to press.
So why is there no app?
Because an app would make the game worse at the thing it is for. A game needs everybody in it at once, and an app version means two app stores, two review queues, two sets of update prompts, and some proportion of your table stranded on a version that does not match. The browser is the one thing every device already has.
There is a second reason, less obvious and more useful: with a website, your account is the thing that travels, not the installation. Sign in on the laptop in the morning and the iPad in the evening and it is the same game, mid-round, exactly as you left it. Nothing has to be installed twice.
What you get instead of an app
Most of what an app would have given you, you can have anyway. Both iOS and Android will let you add a website to your home screen, and this site is built to take advantage of that: it gets its own icon, and it opens full-screen with no browser bar, which is the part that actually feels like an app.
It takes about ten seconds and it is three taps. The step-by-step is on the iPad and tablet page for tablets, and on the phone page for phones.
| This site | An app-store game | |
|---|---|---|
| To start playing | Open a web page | Find it, install it, wait |
| Storage used | None | Tens or hundreds of megabytes |
| Updates | Nothing to do | Update prompts, mismatched versions |
| On a second device | Sign in | Install it again |
| On a locked-down computer | Works | Usually blocked |
| Adverts and purchases | None | Common |
| To stop using it | Close the tab | Uninstall |
The honest cost
One thing a download would buy you, and this page would be worthless if it pretended otherwise: playing with no internet. This is a live game between real people, so it needs a connection. There is no offline mode and no computer opponent to play against on a plane. If that is what you are after, a native app is the better tool and you should get one.
What you need instead is modest: a browser updated some time in the last couple of years, a normal internet connection, and the people you want to play with. The browser and computer page has the specifics for Mac, Windows, Chromebook and Linux.
Is a website safe to use?
It is worth saying plainly, because “don’t download things you don’t recognise” is good advice that people rightly apply here. Nothing is installed, so nothing can install anything else. The site does not ask for access to your files, your contacts or your photos, and it never asks for an administrator password — a web page cannot do any of those things. The connection is encrypted, the way your bank’s is.
The account exists so your games survive until tomorrow and so people can invite you. It takes a first name, an email address and a password; there are also Continue with Google and Continue with Facebook buttons if you would rather not have another password. What that account costs you is covered on the is it free page.
If you have never played the game
Worth knowing before you go looking for a tutorial: the board refuses illegal moves, so a beginner cannot really go wrong. how to play Mexican Train covers the rules, and the page on learning it covers your first five minutes.