Real-time party game · 4 clients
Gotcha!
A real-time bluffing trivia party game. Write fake answers to real questions, fool your friends, find the truth.
Live on the web · iOS and Android builds ready
- When
- Oct 2026
- My part
- Solo: game design, backend, web, Android and iOS apps, ops
- Players per room
- 3 – 12
- Clients
- Web · iOS · Android
- Code
- ~39.5k lines
- Spec to live web
- 4 days
Chapter 1 of 6 ·
Read every review first
Before any code: a research doc on what players of bluffing games love and hate, built from store reviews and screenshots, then a written spec for the rules, the screens and the protocol.
Original name, art, question decks, stickers and sounds. The mechanics are the classic party-bluffing ones.
Chapter 2 of 6 ·
One protocol, four clients
A single written protocol drives a React web client, a Kotlin Android app and a SwiftUI iOS app, all talking WebSockets to one FastAPI server.
Live rooms survive a server restart: room state is snapshotted to Redis, so a deploy mid-game doesn't end the party.
$ git log feat: add TypeScript types and configuration for web application
Chapter 3 of 6
No Wi-Fi? The host's phone becomes the server
On Android the host phone runs the game server itself. Guests find it on the local network over mDNS, and anyone without the app joins from a browser served straight out of the APK.
Chapter 4 of 6 ·
Boring ops, on purpose
The game is a toy. The ops behind it aren't.
Chapter 5 of 6 ·
Reports, feedback and the finishing touches
Player reports, feedback, "help me lie" hints, floating reactions, spectating, a final podium and awards. A custom sticker and sound library is exported to every client from one script.
$ git log feat: add support for reporting and feedback features
Chapter 6 of 6
Live on the web, apps in the wings
gotchaparty.com is live with a waitlist and a playable demo. The iOS and Android builds run and are heading to the stores.
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Enjoyed Gotcha!? It's free. Buy me a chai and the next one gets made faster.