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Show HN: I built a Jeopardy game maker with buzzer support (buzzinga.io)

284 points by Wolfmans55 ↗ HN
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.

73 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 167 ms ] thread
RockRobotRock
This is awesome! Is there any chance of open source?
Wolfmans55
No plans at the moment, but I’m not fully against the idea.
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PaulMest
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
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
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
Ha, never heard of this event. Watching the one from DEFCON 31 now. Did you play in that one?
jonmb
For a few years I was hoping someone would create something like this, or I’d eventually do it myself. Thank you!
aloisdg
Is the website open source?
dsr_
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.

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Wolfmans55
Yeah, the wording is a good point. I'll think about the color scheme.
CodeWriter23
IANAL but I had one who advised us our Trade Dress was defendable.
bfdm
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
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
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
You'll only see it if you're logged in. I'll fix the menu button!
bfdm
Ah neat, I'll give that a try!
explaininjs
You mean the question? Everyone should be able to see the answer of the active clue.
Wolfmans55
Nope. Everyone should be able to see the clue, but not the answer or correct response to the clue.
re
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_
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
Seems like a strong LLM could act as a host.
encomiast
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?
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Wolfmans55
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.

hoistbypetard
That looks like a lot of fun... can you share a little about what you used to make phones work nicely as buzzers?
Wolfmans55
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
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
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
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.
jmpavlec
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
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
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.
apgwoz
“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
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
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
The others do likewise. And actually include the word "Jeopardy" in their own names.
apgwoz
There you go then. I guess they don’t care.
netik
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
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
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
only one I've seen so far is buzzin.live, which acts only as a buzzer (pretty good one at that)
thelazyorcas
This is super cool!

I'm going to try in the next game night with my friends. Will let you know how it goes.

indus
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
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
is there a way to add our own questions/board?
Wolfmans55
Yes, you just hit “Create new board” on the play.buzzinga.io page which will prompt you to sign up or log in.
re
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
Yes. If a team buzzes in and the host marks their response as incorrect, they can’t buzz in again.
re
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.

notpushkin
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