Other things to point out: It's free and no signup is required by any of the game participants (just create a room, share link, and enter). If you have a good/bad experience, feel free to reach out: mariusz at cyberspaces dot app
Looks good. I'd love to know what stack you're building with and what you're learning.
After seeing the readastorytome.com Show HN [0] was using Phoenix LiveView I was considering building a similar app to play spades or 42 as an excuse to learn some things I've been wanting to learn for awhile.
Awesome! Building these sort of games is a lot of fun and I recommend it! We think there's a good opportunity right now for games over video chat: folks that are self-isolating need a way to connect with each other and if you provide a fun service for that I think it will be used.
We started off using what we knew best: Rails, React and the Twilio Video SDK. We'll introduce other technologies as they are needed to increase our velocity or enable us to build more rich game experiences.
Happy to chat more offline: mariusz at cyberspaces dot app
this is really awesome, would love an option to play the games without requiring cam/mic access (if friends are already bought into another tool like zoom), which could also may also allow more players (e.g. bigger teams for codenames)!
Thank you - really appreciate the feedback! Bigger codenames games get CRAZY and we understand the appeal and we want to be able to provide that experience too. We've been thinking about this problem a lot since many of our users play as couples (they share a screen) and they can't easily participate separately. We also understand the privacy issues and we'll be building an option to enter a game room with your audio/video defaulted to off.
Not sure which country you are in, or if you care at all but you might want to avoid using trademarked game titles like Boggle to avoid any legal disputes. Perhaps a subtle nod like Bogly or something would be enough to let people know the general game...
Yeah man, really impressed with your simple yet effective implementation. Played a quick game of Boggle with a work mate of mine to test it out. Worked quick and seamlessly! Can't wait to see what other games you get on there.
How are you guys managing the video? Is it peer to peer or is it being routed and encoded in a server first?
Codenames needs at least four players to start, if it's p2p, have you noticed any lag or bandwidth problems?
Hey nice to meet another Polish dude! We use Twilio's Video SDK and their P2P rooms. This works fine for most users on desktops and good internet. When I play with friends in CA (I'm in NY), I don't experience any serious issues. Sometimes there's feedback when a user has their speakers blasting. Many of our users experience problems on mobile when there are a lot of players in the room. We're thinking about switching video providers to one with an affordable server option to improve the larger game rooms experience though.
How much do you guys spend per month on the Twilio API if you don't mind me asking? We are currently running our site on an ovh server for $5 a month with no problems since we don't have a crazy amount of users.
I just gave it a shot to play codenames and it worked great for us. Are there restrictions on the max number of participants per game at this time? I'm thinking this could be fun for a work happy hour.
Hey. We're super sorry about that. We are using the Twilio Video SDK for video conferencing and one thing we check is that your browser is supported by the SDK before entering a game room. The messaging on the error screen you encountered isn't great and we'll work on improving it. The experience works best on desktop Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge. On mobile iOS it only works on Safari browser.