asked and answered.

birthdayland is a birthday website your friends fill together. everyone leaves a card from one link: a note, doodles, photos, a video and a selfie. on the day, each friend is a little character on a 3d island the birthday person walks around, beside a scrapbook board of every card and a festival of 12 mini-games.

friend groups, partners, siblings, long-distance friends and anyone with a milestone coming up: the 18th, the 21st, the 30th. it works best when lots of people want to say something to one person at once. it's made for teens and adults; nobody under 13 can make a site or leave a card.

yes. the demo island is a finished birthday site for a made-up friend called sam, signed by made-up friends. walk around, read the board, hug the blobs and play the festival games. it's look-only, so nothing you do there sticks, and anyone can open it without signing up.

now. press "start a site", sign in, and set it up in about ten minutes: their name, their birthday and a few photos. every site starts free on Sketch, and you only pay once if the group outgrows five cards. friends never need an account.

no. a friend opens the link, makes a card in about two minutes and closes the tab: no account, no app, no email address. only the host signs in, to set the site up and look after the cards. a friend can still edit their card later from the same browser they made it on.

a note (up to 1,500 characters), marker doodles, photos and a video: they can film up to 30 seconds right in the browser, or upload one up to a minute. a selfie gives their blob a face on the island. one card holds up to 12 photos, doodles and videos, and everything but the note is optional.

yes. a card remembers the browser that stuck it, so its friend can open the site again on the same phone or laptop and change the note, the photos or the video, or take the card down. from another device, they can ask the host, who can hide or delete any card.

yes. leaving a card works on a phone: the card maker films or uploads the video, takes the selfie and lets you draw with a finger. the board stacks into one column, and the island has a thumb stick and big buttons, so the birthday person can walk around and play the games on a phone too.

yes, once three or more friends have left cards: they become the rival in the dance-off, the crowd at karaoke, the friends behind the fence at the water-balloon toss, and the blobs you must never bonk in whack-a-gnome. with four or more notes in, karaoke even sings lines from their messages.

three things, in any order. they read every card on the board, walk the island and hug each friend (their doodles fly, their message types out and a candle lights on the cake), and play the 12 festival games, where their friends are the crowd. nothing needs explaining, and nothing can be lost.

not at all. it's arrow keys or WASD on a laptop and big touch buttons on a phone. most rounds take about a minute (the longest is 90 seconds), and nobody loses anything: the games are there to be laughed at. if motion is too much, the whole site respects the reduced-motion setting and has a calmer mode.

whenever you send them the link: at midnight their time, over breakfast, or live on a call with everyone watching. until then, keeping it quiet is up to you and the friends with the link. a surprise reveal that opens it at midnight in their time zone is coming to the Party plan.

yes: an original little soundtrack made in code, plus pops and squeaks for hugs and games. it stays off until the birthday person taps it on, there's a mute button on every page, and the site remembers when they've muted it, so it never blares out on a train.

yes. as the host you see every card the moment it's stuck, and you can hide or delete any of them, one at a time or in bulk, before the birthday person sees it. a hidden card stays saved, so you can show it again; or switch on approve-first, and new cards wait for your yes.

anyone you give the link to. birthday sites are unlisted: they're kept out of search engines and AI crawlers, and no list or sitemap ever names one. only the storefront you're reading now is meant to be found. photos and videos sit at long, random addresses nobody can guess.

on Sketch, it takes cards until 30 days after the birthday. on Party, it takes cards for a year and then stays up as a read-only archive, and Milestone keeps it open for two years before it's archived. you can download every card and video as a zip on either paid plan.

yes, on Party and up. one zip holds every card's note, photos, doodles and videos, with a page inside that shows them all offline, no internet needed. friends' cards still belong to the friends who made them, so share the download the way they'd expect. the free Sketch plan has no download.

Sketch free, Party $19, Milestone $39, one payment per birthday site. Sketch takes 5 friends' cards and 2 festival games; Party takes 50 and opens every game; Milestone adds the signature themes and room for every friend. friends never pay, and nothing is a subscription.

no. a paid plan is one payment for one birthday site: no monthly bill, no renewal email, no card kept on file. Party is $19 once and Milestone $39 once, and Sketch costs nothing. next year's birthday gets a site of its own, which starts free again.

never. friends open the link and leave a card for free on every plan, with no account and no ads. only the host pays, once, and only if the site needs more than the free plan's 5 cards or every game. the birthday person never pays for their own party either.

yes, any time, and you only pay the difference: Party to Milestone is $20, not another $39. every card already on the site stays where it is, and the bigger limits arrive as soon as the payment goes through, usually within seconds.

yes: a theme made by hand for one birthday site is $149, a few slots at a time. book one from the pricing page and kevin emails within two days to plan it with you: their colours, their jokes, their own nav. questions first? write to k.bowen.liu@gmail.com.