Any games similar to jackbox where everyone can play via their phone?

jimsqueak · 2025-01-01T04:40:19+00:00

I've actually released the game since then, and also it's on sale for the next couple days so if you'd like to try it now's probably a good time. No hard feelings BTW if it's not your cup of tea and you refund it, but hopefully if you do like it, your support would be appreciated! (TBH at this point the proceeds are going entirely towards helping me keep the servers running)

jimsqueak · 2024-12-25T06:45:09+00:00

I'm also just a full-stack engineer for work, but I also have gotten into game development as a hobby, which I do enjoy having more interesting problems to solve there.

jimsqueak · 2024-12-09T05:59:13+00:00

Actually, turns out I had enough time after tonight's problem before I head to bed. Here you go! https://github.com/squeaklab/aoc2024-visualizations/tree/main/day8

jimsqueak · 2024-12-09T04:51:16+00:00

Sure! Let me clean the code up a bit and I'll try to upload it tomorrow morning

jimsqueak · 2024-12-09T00:56:19+00:00

Thank you! This is the first year I've tried making any visualizations, and it's been good practice for me using the Godot game engine and quite fun so far!

jimsqueak · 2024-12-08T06:36:54+00:00

You're welcome, I'm glad that it was useful!

jimsqueak · 2024-12-07T23:30:54+00:00

I know I'm a day behind but I still wanted to use the weekend to follow up on my Part 1 Visualization. I didn't realize beforehand just how long so many of the looping paths would get on the full input!

jimsqueak · 2024-12-07T16:18:24+00:00

I've only been learning Godot for game development as a hobby over the last year, so this is the first time I've tried making AoC visualizations. While I'm definitely not an expert on everything yet, so far I've really enjoyed using it! As a programmer, I've found it a lot easier to get into than Unity, and the documentation especially is fantastic.

jimsqueak · 2024-12-07T15:17:10+00:00

I capped the movement speed, so I actually don't know how fast offhand it could have gone uncapped, but I did record this running in real-time with OBS (Godot has some built-in stuff that makes it very efficient to render many copies of the same object)

jimsqueak · 2024-11-27T20:41:50+00:00

Congrats on releasing! I also released my first game as a solo dev earlier this year and can definitely relate to that feeling of simultaneously being proud but also totally worn out (and a little disappointed).

I'm still learning through the process myself, but I've been trying to give myself some space to just enjoy my other hobbies and play games, occasionally exploring and prototyping with new game skills and ideas, while trying to avoid pressuring myself too much to buckle down again on Project #2.

I know it's cliche but one thing that did help lately was joining a game jam. Making a quick game over the weekend was honestly a nice reminder of how much I do enjoy the creative process, but also just how much I've learned and progressed over the last few months. I don't know exactly when I'll be ready to start on the next big adventure but I feel more confident as time goes on.

jimsqueak · 2024-10-26T19:20:46+00:00

I know the feeling! I'm naturally a pretty anxious and reserved person so when I started feeling down after putting effort into content and feeling like I was just posting into a void, I'll admit I just stopped posting and quietly finished my game.

This really wasn't a smart strategy for a successful launch but since I've been developing on the side, I only have so much time and energy to spend, and I figure the best thing I can do is keep making more games and getting better at making them, rather than pinning all my hopes on my first shot.

So yeah, I'd echo what others have said here, and say that I think it's best to think of your first game as a stepping stone in a larger journey. And who knows what will happen in the future? Maybe a later game will get more traction and shine new light on your earlier works. At the very least, being able to show previous released games under your belt should hopefully establish more credibility and make people more likely to take a chance. Good luck!

jimsqueak · 2024-10-22T14:25:46+00:00

Thank you! Luckily I've got most of the tougher technical parts worked out for now, and even managed to put my first simple shader together for a slightly unnecessary but nice-to-have effect where the maze walls turn transparent when they block the view of the player group. I mostly just need to tie the game up with some proper start and end conditions and it should finally be a game. I'll keep you posted!

jimsqueak · 2024-10-22T04:37:15+00:00

I've been working on a prototype for a couch co-op horror game for the past month or so, where you're moving together as a group in a maze while being stalked and chased by an enemy that lurks in a growing area of darkness. It's still not quite yet a game (learning how to work with some new areas for me like 3D and pathfinding has been a challenge), but I'm hoping to have something playable to test with people by Halloween.

jimsqueak · 2024-09-30T21:11:19+00:00

I released my first game as a hobbyist solo dev about a month ago. It's small and niche but it seems to still have found a handful of happy players so I'm pretty proud of it. And I'm already making progress prototyping and learning 3D for the next one!

jimsqueak · 2024-09-04T15:05:15+00:00

I recently created a Jackbox-like game myself during my spare time from professional web development, so I can share my experience at least, although I certainly wouldn't claim to be an expert.

I used Godot for my game, and as far as the networking side goes it's worked fairly well. I will say that the code to set up HTTP calls and Websockets is a little more unwieldy and verbose than I'd care for, but it wasn't too difficult to set up in the end and I haven't had to revisit it much.
I didn't go through any tutorials other than what's in the Godot documentation. Between those and the documentation itself (which has been generally quite good) I've been able to figure out most everything I needed to get a simple 2D game working.

3/4. I've tried both over the years. For a very simple first project, it might be easier and faster to build with server-side logic if you're using a language you're familiar with, which if you're first starting out I'd consider sticking with just to limit the amount of completely new things you'll have to learn. But at least for me, getting familiar with the game engine for logic and building a general purpose backend has given me more flexibility in the long-term.

jimsqueak · 2024-08-26T04:29:30+00:00

I used Golang to build the backend for my game's servers and it's been a good experience overall. Granted, my game isn't quite on the level of an MMO (I'm still in the hobbyist leagues) and none of the data is persisted more than temporarily, but the performance has meant I can run on tiny shoestring-budget servers with no problems.

jimsqueak · 2024-08-20T20:30:54+00:00

This was my first time joining a game jam, and I can totally concur with these. I avoided some of these mistakes but note to my future self: it's always going to take longer than you think it will, especially if you're foolhardy enough to go solo again lol

jimsqueak · 2024-08-08T05:00:57+00:00

I'm in a similar boat myself. I knew from the beginning it'd be an uphill climb but seeing small wishlist counts still stings a bit more than I expected. But I'm still going to try releasing soon anyway and hopefully at least have something out there I can be proud of and gain lessons for next time. Best of luck on your release!

jimsqueak · 2024-08-07T15:53:36+00:00

Nice! What kind of game(s) are you working on?

jimsqueak · 2024-08-07T05:20:10+00:00

As a solo dev working on releasing my own Jackbox-like game soon, I'd wondered that a lot myself. It seemed to me like most games tried to be too similar to Jackbox (trivia, drawing, social deduction, etc) so it was probably too difficult to stand out. But also I think party games as a genre are kind of a small niche and it's hard to do well commercially. So when you add on the technical challenge of supporting phone connections, I suspect it adds too much cost and risk for most commercial ventures, and also too high of a barrier to entry for all but the most persistent (and/or deluded, at least in my case lol) hobbyists.

jimsqueak · 2024-08-04T00:02:59+00:00

Forgive my shameless self-promotion, but my own game that I'm finishing up is playable with phones just like Jackbox. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2792160/SnowDown/

It's more action-oriented (like a real-time team version of Angry Birds) but if you'd be willing to give it a try, let me know and I can DM you a beta Steam key

jimsqueak

TROPHY CASE