Show HN: JØKU – Web game I built if you fancy poker
playjoku.com
Continue reading if you are interested about my process.
I'm a recent dad with a full-time job, so those who are in the same position can relate that my free time is almost non-existent. I've had this idea for a game for some time, heavily inspired by playing Balatro. Even though I had made games with Unity before, I thought a lightweight web app was the way to go for this, but the thought of learning a whole new framework was overwhelming.
I was able to get the core idea of the game prototyped on a Sunday afternoon. This first prototype was built with pure JS/HTML/CSS, a single file that was 3k lines long. I showed the prototype to friends and family, and people were hooked! I had more ideas, though, so it was time to refactor the whole thing with a proper web framework.
It's been more or less a month since then, and I've been refining the game, adding features, and polishing it. It was a wild ride, to be honest, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. The current version uses React, Tailwind CSS for styling, Framer Motion for animations, and Firebase for leaderboard / analytics.
What's really cool is that, beyond actually finishing a project in my limited time, I learned a LOT about React and web tech in the process. I've started applying these skills in my full-time job as well, creating dashboards for the tools we are building.
Let me know what you think about the game if you get a chance to play, and ask me if you want to learn anything else about my journey. Cheers!