[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 : 268 points
Date : 2024-07-14 12:20 UTC (1 days 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.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| IANAL but I had one who advised us our Trade Dress was
| defendable.
| 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!
| explaininjs wrote:
| You mean the question? Everyone should be able to see the
| answer of the active clue.
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| Nope. Everyone should be able to see the clue, but not the
| answer or correct response to the clue.
| re wrote:
| I believe that explaininjs is making a pedantic/semi-
| tongue-in-cheek joke about the gimmick of Jeopardy where
| the clues are "answers" and contestants buzz in to
| respond with the "question".
| https://youtu.be/KDTxS9_CwZA?t=156
| hunter2_ wrote:
| It would be pedantic if it were indeed nothing but a
| joke, but I think the existence of this gimmick forces us
| to assimilate our non-joking language in order to avoid
| ongoing problems. Easier to have common ground among
| participants and onlookers than not. To exclude yourself,
| should you wish, simply stick to clue/response.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Seems like a strong LLM could act as a host.
| 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.
| apgwoz wrote:
| I'm not familiar with all of the ones that already exist, but
| this is clearly trying to replicate the Jeopardy look and
| feel. Back in the NES days, there were licensed Jeopardy
| cartridges and board games. Maybe things haved changed... but
| I'm pretty sure they still protect at least some of the
| Jeopardy brand.
| jdiff wrote:
| The others do likewise. And actually include the word
| "Jeopardy" in their own names.
| apgwoz wrote:
| There you go then. I guess they don't care.
| 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.
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| Excellent!
| indus wrote:
| Very cool! Love the project. Thanks.
|
| I watch Jeopardy a lot -- that bartender from New York achieving
| 9 days of wins, was an amazing thing to watch.
|
| Curious: are you using questions from the game or built your own
| database?
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| There's only two public boards: "Animals", which I clobbered
| together awhile ago just as a demo for folks to test Buzzinga
| with.
|
| I later added the "Millennials" game, which I created myself
| and played with friends on a game night.
|
| Neither have clues from the Jeopardy! show itself AFAIK.
| indus wrote:
| is there a way to add our own questions/board?
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| Yes, you just hit "Create new board" on the
| play.buzzinga.io page which will prompt you to sign up or
| log in.
| re wrote:
| Do you implement the Jeopardy!-style buzzer lockout or can
| contestants hit their buzzers as much as they want without
| penalty? https://www.jeopardy.com/jbuzz/behind-scenes/how-does-
| jeopar...
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| Yes. If a team buzzes in and the host marks their response as
| incorrect, they can't buzz in again.
| re wrote:
| I meant this part:
|
| > If a contestant attempts to ring in before the gameboard
| lights activate, the system locks out their signal for a
| quarter of a second.
|
| This discourages contestants from repeatedly tapping the
| buzzer before the question has finished being read.
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| Oh, I see. No, not yet.
| lame-lexem wrote:
| There is actually a pretty cool clone of Svoja igra (russian
| jeopardy clone <https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svoia_igra>) sigame
| <https://vladimirkhil.com/si/game> which is popular with russian
| streamers and is open source. It is available as a web and native
| application, and has an extensive library of packs (sets of
| questions, tho many of them are in russian).
| notpushkin wrote:
| This is cool, congrats on launching!
|
| Jeopardy is an _extremely_ popular "playing in Discord with
| friends" activity in Russia / CIS (called _Svoya Igra_ here,
| lit. "own game", or just _svoyak_ for short). I think this is the
| most popular app of this kind here:
| https://vladimirkhil.com/si/game
| akam4n4n wrote:
| Hi! this looks amazing. wanted to confirm what the pricing will
| look like? i want to try it out in a college quiz contest.
| prakhar897 wrote:
| Great Implementation!! Jackbox games are ever more popular with
| remote work. There's a huge market for games like these.
|
| I think bundling a few of these and selling B2B to corporates as
| FunFriday activities would bring huge sales.
| RNAlfons wrote:
| You should pitch this for the next Chaos Computer Congress. They
| used to play "Hacker Jeopardy" with some self hosted solution.
| Yours looks much better.
| password4321 wrote:
| Chrome+WebUSB should allow supporting Buzz! USB buzzers.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz%21
|
| https://github.com/bbeardsley/BuzzIO
| hobs wrote:
| A classic thing I was looking for back when I was doing technical
| training, well done.
| richwater wrote:
| Wow, get a few of these bad boys and you're in business!
|
| (Physical usb buzzers)
|
| https://www.delcomproducts.com/productdetails.asp?PartNumber...
| carterdmorgan wrote:
| Love it! It's not really Jeopardy without the buzzers, is it?
| racl101 wrote:
| That's awesome! Gotta check this out.
| jjbinx007 wrote:
| You've made it onto Digg's homepage so expect plenty of traffic
| https://digg.com/gaming/link/jeopardy-buzzinga-at-home-game?...
| Wolfmans55 wrote:
| Wow, thanks for the heads up! Was not expecting this...
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(page generated 2024-07-15 23:02 UTC)