How to add captions to a board game rules explainer or playthrough on iPhone

Why caption board game videos

Board game and tabletop videos, such as a how-to-play rules explainer, a setup walkthrough, a short playthrough with friends or a strategy tip for one turn, are watched in a feed with the sound off and replayed by viewers checking a rule. Captions let them follow each rule and move, and they help viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing.

This guide is for games played on a table with dice, cards and pieces. For video game clips, see the gaming clip guide; for sit-down talk with several people, the podcast clip guide. CaptionAddr burns the captions into the picture, so they show wherever you post.

Caption a board game video on iPhone

1. Explain the rules clearly. Speak toward the phone and name dice and cards in full, such as “roll the twenty-sided die” or “draw two cards.” Dice rolls and shuffling aren’t captioned, but table noise can cover quiet words, and CaptionAddr doesn’t remove noise.
2. Choose the video. Tap Select Video in CaptionAddr and pick the clip with Apple’s Photos picker. Overhead, vertical, square and landscape videos all work, and the video keeps its shape.
3. Let the captions generate. Captions start as soon as the video opens; keep the app open; the English speech is transcribed on your iPhone, not on a server.
4. Fix game terms and made-up words. Names of pieces, resources, card types and invented words from the game are the words most likely to come out wrong. Correct them in Edit Captions, and delete table chatter you don’t want shown. You can edit, delete and reorder words, with undo and redo.
5. Keep the board in view. Choose one of the 20 fonts and a size that reads on a phone, turn on the tinted background over a colorful board or card art, and drag the captions to an edge of the frame where they don’t cover the board, the cards or the dice.
6. Export and post. Tap Export Video to save the captioned copy to Photos, then upload it to TikTok, Reels, Shorts or any other app. The watermark is off unless you turn it on.

Tips for board game captions

• Read card text out loud. Captions come from your speech, not from the rulebook, cards or text on screen, so read out any card or rule that matters.
• Say who is playing. Players aren’t labeled, so say “my turn” or “now the blue player moves” when the turn passes.
• One voice for the rules. A single person explaining is easiest to follow. Several players talking at once can run words together.
• Split long playthroughs before captioning. CaptionAddr picks one video at a time and doesn’t split clips, so cut a long game into parts in your video editor and say “part one” at the start of each.
• Keep your original. CaptionAddr exports a new copy and leaves the original clip in your library.

Limits

• Speech only. CaptionAddr captions spoken English. It doesn’t read cards, rulebooks or text shown on screen, and it doesn’t caption dice rolls, music or sound effects.
• Every voice is captioned. Each player’s words become captions, with no speaker labels to tell them apart.
• Captions only. The app doesn’t add arrows, score overlays, titles or rule summaries, and you can only fix, delete or reorder the transcribed words.
• No audio changes. The app doesn’t remove table noise or change the audio; deleting a word removes it from the captions only.
• English only. CaptionAddr transcribes English speech and doesn’t translate.
• Single-word captions. Words appear one at a time, timed automatically, always in uppercase; there is no full-sentence layout or manual per-word timing.
• Length. Free covers videos up to 2 minutes; CaptionAddr Pro covers up to 30 minutes. CaptionAddr doesn’t trim, split or combine clips. The App Store shows the current Pro price in your currency.
• Burned-in captions only. There is no SRT, VTT or text export, and the app doesn’t post to social platforms.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• How to add captions to a gaming clip on iPhone
• How to add captions to a podcast clip on iPhone
• Captions for YouTube Shorts

All caption guides →