[HN Gopher] Show HN: I built a Jeopardy game maker with buzzer s...
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Show HN: I built a Jeopardy game maker with buzzer support
Sometime in early 2022, my wife and I started watching Jeopardy!
regularly, almost by accident. Inspired, I thought it would be fun
to create and host my own games with family and friends. By
September 2022, I debuted Buzzinga at a family reunion. Back then,
it was just a website running locally on my MacBook. It was a total
blast, and I knew this was something the world should enjoy too. I
launched Buzzinga.io in December 2023 and have been rolling out
regular updates for our 2000+ users ever since. Features: -
Built-in buzzer support (phones and physical buzzers) - Automatic
scorekeeping - User-friendly host controls - Highly customizable -
Supports multiple clue types: text, image, audio, and video The
site does not require sign up to play around with, only to create
your own games.
Author : Wolfmans55
Score : 168 points
Date : 2024-07-14 12:20 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (buzzinga.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (buzzinga.io)
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| This is awesome! Is there any chance of open source?
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| No plans at the moment, but I'm not fully against the idea.
| PaulMest wrote:
| Very cool! I built a no-code version of this for my friends'
| birthdays where all of the clues were about them (inside jokes,
| dumb bets, catch phrases, etc). I just printed out categories in
| a grid on a sheet of paper and had a bunch of questions listed
| out in OneNote on my phone and manually kept score. I didn't put
| penalties in place if somebody got it wrong to encourage people
| to participate vs just optimizing for score. "Jonpardy" and
| "Joshpardy" are two of our friend groups most cherished and
| repeatedly cited events from the past 10 years.
|
| I've dabbled with the idea of creating some real implementation
| of this. I most recently put together an @Midnight / After
| Midnight no-code game for a friend's bachelor party. The buzz-in
| mechanics and score-keeping are somewhat similar. Maybe you could
| repurpose your core logic for several different game show themes?
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| Yeah, I made a category for a game night with friends called
| "Who wrote this Facebook status in '09?", which was very
| popular.
|
| Repurposing the logic for different game shows is definitely
| interesting. Although I've matured Buzzinga in the last seven
| months, there's definitely still room to improve, but
| eventually I can see this transition!
| ddtaylor wrote:
| Very fun! I can't wait to give it a run through when I finish
| some of the questions. I have really enjoyed the "Hacker
| Jeopardy" at Derbycon and a few others and I will enjoy the
| opportunity to play without being forced to drink an
| intentionally warmed bottle of smirnoff as punishment for getting
| the wrong answer =)
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| Ha, never heard of this event. Watching the one from DEFCON 31
| now. Did you play in that one?
| jonmb wrote:
| For a few years I was hoping someone would create something like
| this, or I'd eventually do it myself. Thank you!
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Great job! Really well done. Congrats on launch!
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| Thank you!
| aloisdg wrote:
| Is the website open source?
| dsr_ wrote:
| You're going to want to change the wording to "Jeopardy-style"
| rather than implying that it's a Jeopardy product.
|
| I would also recommend changing the default color scheme; it's
| inviting a lawsuit.
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| Yeah, the wording is a good point. I'll think about the color
| scheme.
| bfdm wrote:
| This is _really_ nice. Well done!
|
| I've had a jeopardy based toy project on the backburner for
| several years, with the north star goal of solving the problem
| I've had with every jeopardy game I've ever played: you need an
| Alex/host who knows the answer and can judge players right or
| wrong. This ability to buzz in, be wrong and then have another
| player respond is fairly crucial to real strategic play.
|
| I get this is for fun and not meant to be "real" jeopardy, but I
| wonder if you could add support for something like this by
| allowing a "join as host" option when using the QR code that
| would reveal the answer and not have a score.
|
| Great work and thanks for sharing it!
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| In the menu you'll see there is a "Show answer" button. The
| host can log in on a different tab or device to see the answer
| to the currently flipped clue.
| gamerDude wrote:
| I cannot find this button. :( It also took me multiple
| reloads to find the menu button since it disappears after a
| few seconds. My eyes are drawn to the board and not the upper
| left hand corner.
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| You'll only see it if you're logged in. I'll fix the menu
| button!
| bfdm wrote:
| Ah neat, I'll give that a try!
| encomiast wrote:
| This seems like a cease and desist letter waiting to happen. Are
| you worried that using the name "Jeopardy" and styling it so
| closely to the actual game might bring Sony lawyers knocking on
| your door?
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| It's possible, but there are other jeopardy game maker sites
| out there that charge money and have existed for 5-10+ years
| that do similar things but with "Jeopardy" actually in their
| name (e.g. jeopardylabs)
|
| Worst case, they do, and then I know I made a good product.
| willcipriano wrote:
| I have no notes, this is really dialed in.
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| That looks like a lot of fun... can you share a little about what
| you used to make phones work nicely as buzzers?
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| So overall, the site including the buzzer page uses websockets
| for (close to) real-time client-server communication.
|
| Obviously latency can be an issue, so my non-perfect B+
| solution is to essentially calculate the round trip of the
| buzz, divide it by 2, and subtract it from the server time.
|
| client ------------ pingTime ------------> server
|
| client <----------- serverTime ----------- server
|
| roundTrip = pingTime + pongTime
|
| buzzTime = serverTime - (roundTrip / 2);
|
| The server time is always the source of truth since client
| times can vary. Not using NTP which could possibly be more
| accurate.
| remram wrote:
| That's funny, I too made a phone-buzzer app to watch Jeopardy
| with the in-laws. All it does is pause the video on the laptop
| for 10 seconds when someone presses the button on their phone,
| and show their name. On the plus side it works for any
| YouTube/PeerTube/local-file video, on the minus side no score-
| keeping or even checking of the answer.
|
| https://github.com/remram44/video-buzzer
|
| I think we only used it once, years ago.
| demondemidi wrote:
| When I was in high school in the mid 80s I was in the av club and
| we filmed things for local access cable. We made a jeopardy game
| on a Commodore 64 and converted a joystick into three buttons
| with latches to prevent ties. We broadcast three episodes and had
| the most feedback to the local paper of any local access tv show.
| We were proud. Fun to still see kids doing this.
| staplers wrote:
| Make this a tvOS app and it would be perfect. Parties aren't fun
| if you have to lug out your laptop and hook up the hdmi to the
| tv.
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| This is a great idea.
| jmpavlec wrote:
| I've been working on a similar-ish project with native
| Chromecast support and Amazon TV and using
| phones/tablets/laptops as controllers. You can give it a look
| at https://gametje.com (no login required, just continue as
| guest). It's less jeopardy/trivia and more like Jackbox.
| Currently has 3 games with the 4th almost done (available for
| Alpha testers). Was planning on sharing it on HN soon. Playable
| in 9 languages.
|
| For Chromecast, you can cast directly from your phone and it
| copies the game code to join easily.
| hk1337 wrote:
| That's really cool. I always liked trying to do interactive
| applications like this.
|
| What's the story behind the name, "Buzzinga" aka Bazinga?
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| When I was thinking of a name I thought, well, what do you do
| when you're playing? Buzz in. So I just thought "Buzzinga."
| That's the origin story.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Any chance the name clashes with WB's trademark of the
| Bazinga! catchphrase?
|
| https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85210239&caseType=SERIAL_.
| ..
| hiatus wrote:
| No. The trademark you linked to is for "Bazinga!" with an
| exclamation mark.
|
| > Mark Literal Elements: BAZINGA!
| apgwoz wrote:
| "I'm a lawyer for Sony Pictures Television, producers of the hit
| syndicated television show "Jeopardy." While we appreciate our
| fans, we cannot allow this to continue. You must cease and
| desist" arriving in your inbox in 3...2...
| jdiff wrote:
| Lots of these exist out on the open net, I don't know why this
| guy would be the guy to bring the wrath of the mediatech
| industry down upon him.
| netik wrote:
| fantastic! I've been building game show buzzers and various PCBs
| for them for about ten years and used them at a lot of events.
|
| any chance you'll open source this?
|
| My boards and code live here:
|
| https://github.com/netik/rpi_gameshow
| poopsmithe wrote:
| Every other anime convention I go to has a fan panel featuring an
| interactive Jeopardy-style game. It's usually built using
| powerpoint or a half baked webapp that crashes the moment the
| audience connects. Would love to see more of them use buzzinga
| instead!
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| I'd like to make an offline mode so you can connect physical
| buttons/buzzers and not have to worry about
| connectivity/latency, etc.
| sadeshmukh wrote:
| only one I've seen so far is buzzin.live, which acts only as a
| buzzer (pretty good one at that)
| thelazyorcas wrote:
| This is super cool!
|
| I'm going to try in the next game night with my friends. Will let
| you know how it goes.
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(page generated 2024-07-14 23:00 UTC)