ChaosOp

Working on a web-based local multiplayer party game platform called GamingCouch.com.

The idea is simple: I love local multiplayer games and game nights but felt that there was always too much hassle with switching between different titles and connecting 4-8 controllers to one PC or console. Jackbox worked great but they relied too much on language and didn't work when the group had people not fluent in english.

Therefore I decided to create a site that is dedicated to action-oriented party games. So no trivia or language based games. When I first showed the idea here on HN, other forums and game fairs, I received a lot of questions from fellow game devs asking if they could bring their own game ideas to the platform as well. I started to work on third-party development tools, which are now in private beta. The first 3rd party game has already been launched on the platform!! https://gamingcouch.com/blog/protostellar-impact-launch

I'm now looking for more game devs interested in making fun party minigames, if you're interested, check out https://gamingcouch.com/developers and hit me up either here, by mail (from my profile) or by joining the community Discord and pinging me!

The TL;DR of Gaming Couch:

- Free Early Access with +20 competitive mini-games.

- Players use their phones as controllers (gamepads work too).

- Completely web-based, no downloads or installs needed.

- Every game supports up to 8 players and is action-based, with quick ~1 minute rounds to keep a good pace. No language-based trivia or asynchronous (turn based) games

Working on a web-based local multiplayer party game platform called GamingCouch.com.

The idea is simple: I love local multiplayer games and game nights but felt that there was always too much hassle with switching between different titles and connecting 4-8 controllers to one PC or console. Jackbox worked great but they relied too much on language and didn't work when the group had people not fluent in english.

Therefore I decided to create a site that is dedicated to action-oriented party games. So no trivia or language based games. When I first showed the idea here on HN, other forums and game fairs, I received a lot of questions from fellow game devs asking if they could bring their own game ideas to the platform as well. I started to work on third-party development tools, which are now in private beta. Last Friday was a big moment as the first 3rd party game was launched on the platform!! https://gamingcouch.com/blog/protostellar-impact-launch

I'm now looking for more game devs interested in making fun party minigames, if you're interested, check out https://gamingcouch.com/developers and hit me up either here, by mail (from my profile) or by joining the community Discord and pinging me!

The TL;DR of Gaming Couch:

- Free Early Access with +20 competitive mini-games.

- Players use their phones as controllers (gamepads work too).

- Completely web-based, no downloads or installs needed.

- Every game supports up to 8 players and is action-based, with quick ~1 minute rounds to keep a good pace. No language-based trivia or asynchronous (turn based) games.

Working on Gaming Couch, a web-based local multiplayer party game platform. It's like a lovechild of Jackbox and Mario Party: https://gamingcouch.com

Just before the weekend I shipped a new mini-game called Pop It: Desert Island (https://gamingcouch.com/blog/pop-it-desert-island-launch). Launch went well: ~3,800 players from 56 countries over the weekend, and it immediately became the most played game on the platform.

It's a battle royale with an ocean/beach themed world, taking inspiration from Roblox, Mario Kart and others. The whole game is built in JavaScript (three.js for the 3D world) using a JS SDK I've been working on. It doubled as a test drive of the same SDK I want to launch for third-party developers, so anyone can build and ship a simple, fun multiplayer party game for the platform, ideally in a single weekend.

If you're a game dev, or aspiring to be one, and want to develop and ship your own party game check out this page https://gamingcouch.com/developers

The TL;DR of Gaming Couch:

- Free Early Access with +20 competitive mini-games.

- Players use their phones as controllers (gamepads work too).

- Completely web-based, no downloads or installs needed.

- Every game supports up to 8 players and is action-based, with quick ~1 minute rounds to keep a good pace. No language-based trivia or asynchronous (turn based) games.

To clarify for fellow readers, since this is a messy situation:

This is about a new temporary measure to legally allow instant-messaging providers to scan their users' messages. Providers lost that legal right when the previous interim act (the Interim Derogation of the ePrivacy Directive, sometimes called "Chat Control 1.0") expired on 4 April 2026. Several large providers have said they'll keep scanning regardless.

This is only one piece of a bigger effort. For years the Commission has been trying to put a more permanent regime in place (the CSA Regulation, or "Chat Control 2.0") without success.

As both a lawyer and a software engineer, I don't understand why big tech and EC want to scan messages, if they actually want to combat online abuse. The research points the other way:

- Most messages on these services are end-to-end encrypted, so they can't be scanned at all (assuming the E2EE is implemented correctly). The Commission itself says 70% of messages on popular chat platforms are E2EE [1].

- Instant messaging isn't the main distribution channel for CSAM in the first place, per data from the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children [2].

So the evidence points to low overall efficacy for message scanning against its stated goal of combating online child sexual abuse.

I don't think it'll pass this time. What worries me more is the spread of mandatory age-verification laws worldwide. That train is already going full steam ahead..

[1] https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/internal-security...

[2] Page 18, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...

Working on Gaming Couch, a web-based local multiplayer party game platform. It's like a lovechild of Jackbox Games and Mario Party: https://gamingcouch.com. More specifically I'm currently working on the 3rd party development tools so in the future anyone can make their game dev dreams a reality and make a simple and fun multiplayer party game for the Gaming Couch platform, ideally in only one weekend! If you're a game dev or aspiring to be one and want to develop and ship your own party game, check out https://gamingcouch.com/developers

The TL;DR of Gaming Couch:

- Currently in free Early Access with 19 competitive mini-games.

- Players use their mobile phones as controllers (you can use game pads as well!)

- Everything is completely web-based, no downloads or installs are necessary to play

- All games support up to 8 players at a time and are action based, with quick ~one minute rounds to keep a good pace. This means there are no language based trivia or asynchronous games!

As a fellow Finn (and a lawyer), super interesting work Elias! And thank you for reporting the inconsistencies you found to Finlex

Working on Gaming Couch, a web-based local multiplayer party game platform. It's like a lovechild of Jackbox Games and Mario Party: https://gamingcouch.com. Three months ago, back in December, Gaming Couch hit the front page of Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46344573). We've had an amazing time since, with each month more and more people finding the platform, enjoying the games and giving awesome feedback!

At the moment working on the 3rd party development tools so in the future anyone can make their game dev dreams a reality and make a simple and fun multiplayer party game for the Gaming Couch platform, ideally in only one weekend!

If you're an interested game dev that would like to beta test the dev tools, hit me up either here, via Discord (link available from https://gamingcouch.com) or by emailing me at gc[dot]community[at]gamingcouch[dot]com!

The TL;DR of Gaming Couch:

- Currently in free Early Access with 18 competitive mini-games.

- Players use their mobile phones as controllers (you can use game pads as well!)

- Everything is completely web-based, no downloads or installs are necessary to play

- All games support up to 8 players at a time and are action based, with quick ~one minute rounds to keep a good pace. This means there are no language based trivia or asynchronous games!

Still working on Gaming Couch, a web-based local multiplayer party game platform. It's like a lovechild of Jackbox Games and Mario Party: https://gamingcouch.com. Back in December Gaming Couch hit the front page of Hacker News, you can check it out here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46344573

At the moment working on the 3rd party development tools so in the future anyone can make their game dev dreams a reality and make a simple and fun multiplayer party game for the Gaming Couch platform, ideally in only one weekend!

If you're an interested game dev that would like to beta test the dev tools, hit me up either here, via Discord (link available from https://gamingcouch.com) or by emailing me at gc[dot]community[at]gamingcouch[dot]com!

The TL;DR of Gaming Couch:

- Currently in free Early Access with 18 competitive mini-games.

- Players use their mobile phones as controllers (you can use game pads as well!)

- Everything is completely web-based, no downloads or installs are necessary to play

- All games support up to 8 players at a time and are action based, with quick ~one minute rounds to keep a good pace. This means there are no language based trivia or asynchronous games!

Awesome to hear! Bunch of new things in plans for the near future, including 3rd party dev tools so that other devs can also make new games for the platform. Hopefully a lot more games to play after that :)

Very cool! Opened a PR to add my local multiplayer game platform, Gaming Couch (https://gamingcouch.com), to the list of games :) Just recently posted a ShowHN post about it which hit the front page and generated so much great feedback and discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46344573

In a nutshell its a web-based game platform where up to 8 players use their smartphones as controllers to play real-time action mini-games on a central browser screen. It takes a lot of inspiration from classic party games like Jackbox, Mario Party and Mario Kart.

I'm building a web-based local multiplayer party game platform. It's like a lovechild of Jackbox Games and Mario Party: https://gamingcouch.com. Back in December Gaming Couch hit the front page of Hacker News, you can check it out here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46344573

The TL;DR:

- Currently in free Early Access with 18 competitive mini-games.

- Players use their mobile phones as controllers (you can use game pads as well!)

- Everything is completely web-based, no downloads or installs are necessary to play

- All games support up to 8 players at a time and are action based, with quick ~one minute rounds to keep a good pace. This means there are no language based trivia or asynchronous games!

- In the future the plan is to open up the platform for 3rd party developers (and Gamejams!) as well. We'd take care of the network connectivity, controllers etc.. 3rd party devs can focus on developing cool multiplayer mini-games without spending an eternity with networking code and building the infrastructure.

Hey! Ping me on Discord and I'll add you to the dev-list so you'll know when the SDK is dropping :)

Thanks, that sounds like an interesting idea as well, need to give it some thought

Hey! Thanks for the detailed feedback, really appreciate it.

I agree with you that making games that appease everybody will not work in the long run. Did your friends give any examples of why they hated 75% of the games? Was it too much the same (e.g. too many variations of the Party Car games) or just didn't overall like the competitivness?

Wrt the lag you mentioned, that's interesting if you had such a varied experience in the same network. Is it possible that some had VPN's in use? That could be one explanation for the variance.

Also, not sure if applicable but just putting it out there that I've noticed a bug with Android+Firefox browser where the ping-indicator does not work and keeps showing +1000ms regardless of what the actual ping is. But sounds like that was not the issue here.

I actually looked at the dev competition they had! The problem was that Discord activities don't support the use of WebRTC as they require all network calls to go through their proxy. This makes real-time gaming a bit harder to implement

Nice, great to hear! I'm actually surprised how smooth everything has been going thus far :D

Thanks! :)

No plans yet but the 3rd party game development SDK will be made publicly available so that anyone can start making their own games for the platform!

Ah ok, now I understand. I don't have a steam deck at hand but based on a quick google search I think it should be possible. The key is whether you are able to connect the steamdecks to the PC so that the Javascript Gamepad API recognizes the decks as controllers. You can connect the decks to the PC and if they show up on this site: https://hardwaretester.com/gamepad they should work with Gaming Couch!

Are you opening the website via your smart tv's browser? If so, it could mean that the TV is not able to handle the live connections. I've noticed some Samsung Tv's exhibiting this behauviour. At the moment the recommended way is to run the games on a computer. Still a lot of optimization for me to do when it comes to smart tv's

I think it could be possible to make it work like that but I'm not familiar with Steamdeck itself so I can't say for sure. Need to look into it. Just so I understood you correctly, you want to host the session on the steamdeck and control your own character via the deck, while at the same time your friend uses their own smartphone to control their character while looking at your steamdeck?

Appreciate it, thanks!

Haha that's also very true. The games were ok and fun but really I think what made Nintendo games special was the 'magic' of it all. In a similar sense as their Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is not the best game but damn do I appreciate the engineering and 'magic' that the game offers, it's just so cool.

Thanks for the link, need to start ideating new games ;)

Thanks! I initially had the idea also 10+ years ago but only got around to do it now.. I think with the web standards having been improved and individual phone performance being much better, it's actually good that I didn't start on the idea right then and there

If you mean like utilizing gyroscope and other sensor of the phone to control the game characters (like in Wii tennis, bowling and so on), I've thought about it but I don't think it's intuitive enough to use your phone like that and I think it would make the learning curve a bit too steep. Nintendo is great at what they do and it has taken a lot from them to make Wii-games work, I don't think it would be too useful to try to copy them :)

Thanks! I agree that party games really need to easy enough to just pick up and play. It's no fun spending 1-2 hours first just learning about the game mechanics. I've gotten quite nice feedback from people that don't usually play games that they've really enjoyed Gaming Couch. My overall aim is to make it simple enough that my grandma can start a game session and play without previous experience in gaming. This means a good skill/luck -ratio for each mini-game, kind of like in Mario Kart it's possible to win by chance even if you don't drive the best using items like blue shells and bullet bils. It evens out the playing field.

All of the games have been developed by me and two of my friends. We do use Cursor and models like Gemini & Claude for generic debugging as part of everyday development tools but nothing games-specific AI tools or deeply integrated workflows have been used. For refactoring large parts of a codebase, I do enjoy using Cursor specifically and I think it does speed up development efforts by quite a lot. However it's not what non-programmers usually think, that you can just write one prompt and generate a game :D

Awesome! Let me know how it goes :)

Thanks! I don't know if you knew but AirConsole was just recently sold to a car software manufacturer and now focuses mostly on in-car entertainment. They have big partnerships with Volkswagen for example.

There's no public support for online multiplayer yet, which would make it possible to play with a random party but that is something I've been thinking would be a good feature to add :)

Thanks for the link, hadn't heard of California Games before but it looks really nice and retro, which I can appreciate