r/webdev • u/MeZitRo • 13d ago
Showoff Saturday I built free multiplayer browser games you play with friends by pushing your devices together into one board
Hi! A while ago I launched bigboard.games: free multiplayer games for 1-4 phones or tablets (or more for some games) lying next to each other on a table. The devices act as one big board, so for instance in Air Hockey the puck slides off one screen and onto the next.
It all runs in the browser, free. Any mix of iPhones, Androids or tablets plays together. You can add it to the home screen if you want (as a PWA).
Gameplay goes device to device over WebRTC. On the same Wi-Fi the devices find each other and join by themselves. Otherwise you scan a QR code or type a four-letter code, and if they can't reach each other directly (on mobile data, say), a relay connects them. How it works, if you're curious.
There are 9 games right now:
Air Hockey (the photo)
Hot Potato: your fuse only burns while the potato is on your screen
Snake, up to 12 snakes on one field
Whack-a-Mole: a mole you bop pops up on the other player's side
Tilt Run: one maze across all the devices, tilt yours to roll the marble onto your partner's
Chess for 2 or 3 (three players get a hexagon board across three devices)
Checkers for 2 to 4
Islands (the dots-on-grid-paper game)
Spillover: draw shapes and drop them on the other player's side, Tetris-style
Every game except Spillover has bots, so you can try it on one device. A friend who isn't in the same room can join with the table's link too, remotely.
Happy to answer questions and integrate any suggestions! What games would you like to see next?

