Building TipsyTV: bringing game night back

This is a project I have had queued up for years. I made versions of it in the past, but they never worked as good as I wanted. The whole idea was a Jackbox-style drinking game. Really it is a sipping game. I wanted to bring back the card games my friends and I played in our early twenties, late twenties, and maybe a little into our early thirties.

The bigger reason I wanted to build it was to learn how WebSockets work. I wanted multiple devices to talk to each other and see everything play out live somewhere else, like on a TV.

The old version

Way before AI, probably around 12 years ago, I got as far as making a chat room. It was working, which felt cool at the time, but work and school were too much to keep up with for a fun side project. The actual game part never got where I wanted it.

Getting a prototype together

This time, with AI, I was able to get a full running prototype out within a day. I explained that I wanted a Jackbox-style game, then gave it the prompts for each game and the rules. It delivered a working starting point fast. It still needs a lot of polish, but it works, and getting to a playable version that quickly was wild to me.

The TV opens a room and gets a four letter code. Everybody else joins from their phone with that code, picks a name, and the room updates live. The TV is the host board, the phones are the controllers, and the game state stays in sync for everyone.

The stack

TipsyTV is a TypeScript project with a React and Vite client, plus a Node and Express server. Socket.io handles the real time connection between the TV screen and all the phones. Tailwind handles the styling, and the shared types keep the game events and room state lined up between the client and server.

The client is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. The server is hosted on Render. Render was the only part of the stack that was new to me, but it was pretty straightforward getting it to work once I got into it.

The cold start thing

One heads up before you try it. The room code can take a minute to load because the server is on Render's free setup and can have a cold start. If you open the TV page and it takes a second, give it a minute to spin up. After that, grab your phones and join in.

Try it out

So yeah. Grab a few friends, grab a few drinks waters, sit around the TV, and try it out.

Let me know which games you want to see next and what needs work. I am having a lot of fun seeing this old idea actually become something people can play.

Also, if there is a card game you and your friends like, let me know through the comments below or send an email. We might get it added!