Livemaxx: the fake live stream app

Livemaxx is Larpmaxx's fake live stream app: your phone camera, a photo or a colour behind a live screen whose viewer count, comments, joins and hearts you control. Nothing is broadcast; it all runs on your phone.

The audience is a simulation running on the phone. There is no stream, no server on the other end and nobody watching, which is the point: it is a screen to film, not a broadcast.

What Livemaxx is

Two screens. Before you go live there is a setup screen over your camera: your picture and username, a box for a title, a slider for the viewer range, a slider for how many comments arrive a minute, and a Go Live button. Once you are live it turns into the familiar overlay of a phone live stream: a red LIVE badge with a running timer, a viewer count with an eye icon, comments scrolling up from the bottom left, hearts floating up the right side, a comment box, a heart button and a close button.

How a live goes

1. Set up. Pick a viewer range and a comment speed on the setup screen, or open the full settings from the gear icon. The Tips button explains installing it, allowing the camera and screen recording.
2. Start a screen recording, then tap Go Live. If the countdown is on, a 3, 2, 1 gives you time to get into position.
3. Be live. The viewer count climbs, viewers “join”, comments come in and hearts drift up. Type in the comment box and your comment appears under your own name. Tap the heart button, or double-tap the picture, for a burst of hearts. Flip between the front and back cameras without leaving the live.
4. Change things mid-live. Long-press the viewer count, or tap the screen with three fingers, and the settings open over the live without stopping it. A new range or comment speed takes effect straight away.
5. End it. The close button asks “End live video?”, and ending shows a recap: how long you were live, the peak viewer count, and how many comments and hearts there were, under your title if you set one.

While the live and the countdown are running, Livemaxx asks the browser to keep the screen awake, where the browser supports that, so the phone does not dim in the middle of a recording.

The viewer count

You set a range rather than a number, because a real count never sits still. The range slider runs from 0 to 10M on a logarithmic scale, so a hundred viewers and a million are equally easy to land on, and the presets jump straight to 100–500, 1K–3K, 10K–25K, 100K–250K and 1M+. Typed figures accept shorthand like 1.2k or 3m and go up to 50M.

Comments, commenters, joins and hearts

Comments arrive at an average rate you choose, from none to 300 a minute, spaced unevenly the way a real chat is. Livemaxx ships with 359 built-in lines written in the register of live chat: greetings, hype, questions, reactions, requests, emoji-only lines and the odd typo. You can write your own instead, one per line, and either mix the built-in pack in or leave it out. Your lines can be said in random order or as a script, top to bottom and round again, which is how you make a particular comment land at a particular moment.

• Pinned comment. One line that stays at the top of the chat, up to 150 characters.
• On screen at once. From 1 to 15 comments; older ones float up and fade.
• Commenters. By default the names and profile pictures are generated. You can add up to 200 of your own, each with a username, a picture from your photos and an optional verified tick, and choose whether generated ones still mix in.
• Joins. “Name joined” rows that pop in with the chat, up to 120 a minute.
• Hearts. Hearts floating up the screen, up to 600 a minute.

Your own profile on the live is set the same way: a username, a picture, an optional verified badge and an optional title.

What is behind the overlay

Your phone camera by default, front or back, with the front camera mirrored like a selfie preview unless you switch that off. Instead of the camera you can use a photo, which is cropped to fill the screen, or a plain colour from a row of swatches or one you pick. If the camera is blocked or missing, the photo or colour shows rather than a black screen.

Installing it

Livemaxx has its own app identity, separate from the Larpmaxx dashboard. In Safari on an iPhone, tap Share and then Add to Home Screen; launched from the new icon it runs full screen, so no address bar ends up in the recording. The Tips sheet inside the app says the same, and adds two practical notes: allow the camera when asked, and turn off Low Power Mode for long lives so the phone does not lock while you record.

Your camera stays on your phone

The camera feed goes to the screen and nowhere else. Livemaxx does not record it, upload it or send it anywhere; if you want a video, you make it with your phone's own screen recording. Settings are kept in the browser's storage and your pictures in its local database, on the device. The settings panel has a Reset all settings button that clears both.

What it is not

It is not a broadcast. Nobody can join, the viewers do not exist, and the count is a number moving inside the range you set. It does not connect to any streaming service, it is not affiliated with one, and it cannot add viewers, comments or followers to a real stream or account.

So use it where everyone is in on it. A clip of you “going live” to a crowd that reads as a crowd is a good bit, and the step-by-step guide covers building the character behind it; larpmaxxing explains the wider idea. Passing a recording off as a real audience, to a sponsor, an agency or anyone deciding whether to pay you, is not a bit. A viewer count you chose is not reach, and selling it as reach is fraud in most places.

Socialmaxx is the still version, a profile whose followers and posts you set, and Notimaxx sends the notifications that can interrupt a recording.

Pricing

There is no separate Livemaxx purchase. Every active Larpmaxx plan includes it, together with Socialmaxx, Notimaxx and Cryptomaxx, and without a plan the app opens on a prompt to pick one. Current prices:

• Starter at $20 a week
• Premier at $50 a month
• Lifetime at $100, paid once

You can see what each plan includes, beside its price, after you create an account and try the demo. Payment goes through Stripe.