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Show HN: Gaming Couch – a local multiplayer party game platform for 8 players

Show HN: Gaming Couch – a local multiplayer party game platform for 8 players

ChaosOp

Comments (111)

  • TurboSkyline
    Hey! I played your game with my friends last weekend! We get together every month to play board games, and lately we've been doing a lot of party games like Jackbox or King of the Castle. One of our guys had heard about your game and we gave it a go and we ended up playing it for most of the day!We tried most of the game options and had really great fun with all of it. Everything worked fine, no issues, no desync, and it didn't destroy battery life on the phone controllers either. I'd say the ferry race and the parking games were my favourite overall, but the others aren't bad by any means! So, thanks a lot for your work, and I'll definitely be returning to Gaming Couch with my group!And for a question: Do you have plans to monetize the platform in the future? If so, can you share any details on how that would work?
  • bart__
    I had similar ideas in the past but never made anything. I wanted to have a host mode where it is hosted on a Chromecast. I believe Chromecast can run custom JS so it should be possible. Maybe even rendering on a phone and streaming to the Chromecast. That would make it even more low friction, so nobody needs to get a tablet or laptop out and hook it up to the screen. Would you be interested in adding that? If you'd want I can maybe even help out with implementing it. Maybe somebody mentioned this before but I couldn't find it.
  • koinedad
    I love the idea. And would be interested in making a game for it as well.
  • wiradikusuma
    There's a saying that no idea is unique, that when you think of an idea, someone else would have thought of the same. I _literally_ have the same idea and am working on a PoC, except mine is completely LAN-based. I'm so happy to see your app!
  • robertfall
    I love this initiative!I’ve spent several hours over the holidays searching for something my family can play and coming up empty.The game that most often works is Song Pop Party on Apple TV, but non-apple phones have a second rate experience and keep disconnecting.Ideally we’d have a trivia game as I also want to engage some older folks, but the leasing trivia game on Apple TV is way too US specific and hard for our family to enjoy.There used to be a game show on local TV in the late nineties called “Noot vir Noot” (note by note) that had a whole bunch of games based on music that was familiar to the local market. I’ve been chasing something like that for years and not come close.I guess the point of my rambling is that I LOVE the phones-as-controllers approach to party games, but many seem to focus on Nintendo-esque experiences, rather than quiz game like experiences.I am aware of the Jackbox games but haven’t looked at the recent releases. They were hit and miss with the family in the past, with many of the non-english first language folks often not getting it.
  • stavros
    This has been sorely missing. I've been playing Jackbox games with friends, and that's been the closest we've gotten to the ideal, but their games are slower-paced and thus rely more on mechanics that don't translate well across cultures.A gaming platform like this hits all the pain points, I'll try it soon and see if the games are good, thanks!
  • giancarlostoro
    You should really consider getting ahold of someone at discord, Jackbox is always hosted on Discord from my experience. Everyone pulls out their phone and plays. Discord had a dev competition at one point with prize money.
  • neko_ranger
    This is sick. I've always wanted to see a modern take on pokemon stadium minigames.Totally agree with your thoughts on jackbox, they're fun but not gaming. Def saving this for later.
  • BloondAndDoom
    I’ve been looking for something like this and will try this. Looks great. I tried Amazon prime game stuff (forgot what it’s called) is not too bad but the selection of games are still not non-gamer friendly enough.Party games need to pick and play, I’m long time gamer, if I want to play MP with other gamers I got million games, but I want to play with random people who never gamed aging from 9-60. Now that’s a challenge, not sure of the games you have this demographic.Having said that, did you develop all of the games yourself? I’ve done some game dev but haven’t touched it for a while, I’m curious if AI actually speeds up the development of this kind of small games? Any experience on that? I love some aspects of game dev but it gets super tedious if you want a certain experience, would’ve been great to get AI to do that :) (i did Godot). I heard good things about unity+AI
  • arrty88
    Great job! I had the same idea when i first played jackbox games 10+ years ago. Yet i never gave it serious thought or effort again.
  • jllyhill
    Please don't use LLM-translation for the site. I can only speak for the Russian version, but it is very crude. Maybe it's just me but I'd much rather skip something that so poorly attempts to cater to me, instead of sticking to English or doing the translation properly.
  • HanClinto
    Fantastic idea!! I've been working off and on with local 4-8 player games, but I had only been using the Javascript gamepad API. I like how you're using smart phones, this seems like a good way to go about it!It would be nice to be able to mix game pads and smart phones -- when gaming with kids, none of my kids have smart phones yet, so it would be nice to be able to let them use Switch controllers if we have those on hand, or use phones if we don't.Regardless, I'm interested in this, and would be interested in contributing a game or two. This seems excellent!
  • smusamashah
    Does this work with actual controller? I want to play with my family but my kid is too young to have a phone. He does have a controller though. We have 2 more controllers. Will be best if we can all play with controllers instead of touch screens.Edit: I have an Nvidia shield for gaming on TV.
  • charcircuit
    Instead of a central screen, what about just having the first client get a URL or code they can share in a group chat. I think this will help remove a lot of friction in getting this setup by piggybacking on top of existing platform's groups.
  • danielscrubs
    Do you think it would work on smart tvs with browsers?If Im having people over I would never start a PC and ask them to hunker down, turning on the tv though…
  • michaelsalim
    I saw this from another post and was going to try it out but lost the link. Thanks for posting here again! Will try it out next time when I have a group of people around
  • bloqs
    Great looking release, well done! I used to play airconsole with my partner a fair bit about 6-7 years ago. How does this differ or is it similar but more modern/performant?
  • ChaosOp
    Thank you all for the messages, will be going through them in the coming hours! Was a bit surprised to see this bounce on the front page, but I guess it came from the second chance pool :)
  • jmpavlec
    I know these guys. Definitely give their games a try! They are actively developing and making it better every week. It's especially fun in person. My favorite game is the dodgeball game.If you prefer more quiz/slower paced games akin to Jackbox. You can check out my project which was also on HackerNews recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45887709
  • herpdyderp
    Would love full remote play somehow so I can use it for team games with my remote team!
  • mrastro
    Beautiful. Congrats on the beta launch
  • mentos
    Curious if you've given any thought to whether or not you want to create clones of the usual Wii sports games or not or leave those squarely in Nintendo's court and find fun elsewhere?
  • airstrike
    That's so cool!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Games may be a great thematic inspiration for a game made for this platform
  • Folcon
    I'm curious, I'm working on a multiplayer game and I'm wondering if this would be a cool new alternative platform for it to target, would you be open to a chat?Email in profile :)
  • formula1
    Reminds me of happy fun times https://github.com/greggman/HappyFunTimes
  • citbl
    Impressive work. I shipped couch multiplayer games on PS4 in the past and it has passed its heyday (it didn't do too well, financially).So seeing it done on the web actually makes a lot of sense.
  • MintyPyro
    This looks great, will def try the next time I'm with friends.
  • Johnny_Bonk
    Very cool, would cool if it's open ecosystem to develop games for, it's on my 2026 bucket list
  • dmje
    This looks super fun, will try with the family when they get out of bed :-)
  • Footprint0521
    This is amazing!! Are you planning on making it open source?
  • abhinavb05
    Amazing product. Thinking of more possibilities like this.
  • frankmatranga
    I wish I saw this two hours ago! I just got back from family Christmas with Jackbox games and I would’ve loved to as try this out too. Definitely going to try this soon.
  • Snoeprol
    Would be nice to get match with a random party!
  • set92
    definitely going to try it with some friends. But it's true that at first I was checking which games I could connect to, or how it worked without reading anything, and thought it was to connect to some multiplayer games of steam, and gaming couch acted as a layer to use phones as joystick only.
  • idle_zealot
    Do you have plans to monetize this? I can think of a few options but they all feel pretty gross...
  • OsrsNeedsf2P
    Looks pretty cool. Is it open source? I'd love to have community contributed games
  • N_Lens
    Excellent work. I've played Jackbox party games before and they're a lot of fun!
  • jonwsavage
    Nice! Definitely showing this to the family over Xmas, great timing haha
  • Tajnymag
    Looks great. Like a more open and cuter version of, now enshittified, AirConsole.AirConsole link for context: https://www.airconsole.com/
  • ram_rattle
    Looks so smooth and no fuss, thanks for building this
  • iwontberude
    Very cool! Thanks for sharing. I would be making stuff like this if I didn't work for a legal team with a consumer electronics company attached to it.
  • adityadeshlahre
    Crazy Build
  • jundanha
    this is so cool
  • DonHopkins
    [flagged]