
Show HN: Play Fishbowl at your next virtual hangout (free, open source) - avimoondra2
https://fishbowl-game.com/
======
avimoondra2
Hola HN, author here!

I wanted to build a free, online version of a favorite party game I used to
play with friends, in person... so we could continue being social, at a
distance!

The first version was created and tested in ~3 weeks. Check out the source
here:
[https://github.com/avimoondra/fishbowl](https://github.com/avimoondra/fishbowl).
It's built with Typescript, React, Material UI, Apollo GraphQL, Hasura,
Express, and Postgres. And it's deployed on Render.

Thanks to a bunch of folks! The amazing Hasura community on Discord, friends
for consultation on some React and deployment options, and even more friends
(and friends of friends) for alpha and beta testing! More features to come
soon :)

Would love any feedback or to discuss anything about the game or tech. Stay
safe, and sane!

~~~
speps
Can you describe the "party game"?

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the_pwner224
Literally the only two things on the submitted website are a picture of a fish
and concise instructions on how to play the game.

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montroser
This is great. For demo purposes, maybe it could be nice to be able to join a
game with strangers? Accumulate each four next people and then put them in a
game together.

At work, we switched from zoom to [https://team.video](https://team.video),
and one really cool thing about it is that you can play a collaborative word
game while you wait for the meeting to get started. A small thing, but those
first few minutes go from being totally frustrating to a nice little reprieve.

~~~
avimoondra2
Thanks!

That's an interesting idea - It has crossed my mind, but I haven't yet fully
explored the idea of playing with strangers likely due to my own bias playing
with closer groups of friends (often with inside jokes).

Maybe even a speed round or trial round that you can play by yourself before
you ask your group to play together.

Are there any features of Fishbowl you might see for work friends or in a
professional setting? (and thanks for the tip on team.video)

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deanstag
How is the game mechanics different from the Monikers?

[http://www.monikersgame.com/](http://www.monikersgame.com/)

Edit: Nevermind. Monikers is a version of the fishbowl game.

~~~
avimoondra2
I think that's right - was thinking about adding "packs" like Pokemon or
Celebrities, etc. to make it even easier to play! But submitting your own
words or phrases makes it personal, and dynamic (different every occasion)

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BeefySwain
Is there a name for the "genre" of games like this? Party games played on a
mobile phone in a browser using a short code to group up.

Other examples include the Jack Box party game collection and Spyfall.

~~~
XaspR8d
Not that I know of, but I've always thought there was a cool project
opportunity for a Mario Party-esque platform of minigames with room-code join-
by-phone controllers.

Sony has the "PlayLink" platform on PS4 but it didn't seem to get much
headway. The only game I saw any awareness of in my circles was "That's You".
Looked neat enough but mostly drew Jackbox comparisons.

~~~
avimoondra2
Mario Party games would be amazing!! Similar also to n64 Pokemon Stadium mini
games, which I still play once in a while today :p Great ideas for some future
projects...

I'm not aware of a name to the genre, but shelter in place might give proper
birth to it!

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zzo38computer
I don't like "You need to enable JavaScript to run this app" with nothing else
visible. Even if JavaScript is disabled, I should still want to be able to
read the documentation, and if source code is available, to access the source
code. Even if nothing else works when JavaScript is disabled, which can make
sense sometimes.

~~~
avimoondra2
Thanks for the feedback! Will add this to the set of issues I'm tracking. You
are correct in that nothing will work when JS is disabled for this app.

Regards to the source, it can all be found here:
[https://github.com/avimoondra/fishbowl](https://github.com/avimoondra/fishbowl).

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sid-s
The perfect party game for quarantime and beyond!

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mariusz331
Great job shipping and thanks for open sourcing!

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dusted
Anyone want to try it out? Join this lobby: OQUG (I've no idea how to play or
what it is)

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darkwizard42
Pumped to see this come to life! Enjoyed the initial tests and it looks great!

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hendersonsam456
this will be good for isolation lolz.

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ykevinator
This is great

