Show HN: Gametje – A casual online gaming platform
gametje.comHi all, I’ve been working on this project for a while but haven't shared it properly on Hacker News.
It is a casual gaming platform focused on simple multiplayer games that can be played in person with a central screen (like a TV) or remotely via video chat. You can also play on your smart Android based TVs via the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gametje (it was just released recently so could be buggy). It is also available directly in Discord: https://discord.com/discovery/applications/12153230008666071... as an embedded activity.
It is playable in 9 languages and doesn’t require any downloads. Most games revolve around creativity in some shape or form. They can be played by just about anyone whether or not you consider yourself a “gamer”. If you can text, you can play these games.
Why did I create it?
Some of you may see the resemblance to Jackbox games. I have been a huge fan of them for 10+ years and enjoyed playing their games a lot. However, I found their support for other languages a bit lacking. While living in the Netherlands, I have encountered quite a few non-native English speakers and wanted to help them have a similar experience. Jackbox also has some fragmentation issues between app stores. I own their games on PC and PS4 but I can’t share a “license” between them. They also come out with a pack every year with 5 games. You never know if the game(s) will be fun, or if you should try to buy a previous pack with the one killer party game in it.
I designed Gametje with these issues in mind. It is playable in multiple languages with more being added regularly (feel free to request one). You can play it from any device with a web browser. There is no need to install it via Steam or a game console. All games are available in one place with no “packs” to buy.
What’s up with the name?
I have been living in the Netherlands for some years and part of my original motivation stems from wanting to give my friends here a game to play in their native language. It's way easier to be witty/funny in your mother tongue after all! Because of that, I wanted to incorporate something Dutch into the site's name. The suffix ‘-tje’ is one of the diminutive endings in Dutch and is meant to soften a word or make it "smaller". Game + tje = Gametje, or a little game. I have been informed by native Dutch speakers that it should have been ‘Gamepje’ to be "correct" but I liked the way Gametje sounded better.
Where can I try it?
Go here: https://gametje.com/
You can test it out as a guest without signing up in order to get a feel for the games. Clicking into each game gives a short explanation and a small example of the gameplay. When creating a game room, you can choose to host via a central screen, host and play from a single device (like a phone) or cast the main screen to a Chromecast. There is also an Android TV app available that was just recently released: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gametje
After creating a game room, you can join from another browser window or device. You can also add AI players if you want to try it out on your own, although it is a lot more fun with real people. I also created a discord channel: https://discord.gg/7jrftHuHp9 where you can find other users to play with. If you sign up for an account, you can opt-in as an alpha tester and see the new games as they are developed. It’ll also keep track of all your previous games and make sure not to duplicate content. You can review previous games as well and relish in your past victories.
What am I looking for?
I am interested in feedback about the whole concept and also the gameplay. Is it fun? What could be improved? Interested in helping out? Let me know!
Happy to share the more technical details as well for those that are interested. You can also read a bit about the platform and games in my blog:
Thanks!
I tried to build something like this during covid and got into the weeds around syncing a vuex store across server/client based on pinia (https://pinia.vuejs.org). Vue3 separated the reactivity model from the framework so when the server made a change, it forwarded the event automatically to clients. Since the game state was a series of mutations, it made it easy to replay on a client along with net code style rollback in the case of conflicts.
All told, congrats shipping something!
There are certain Dutch dialects (e.g. west flemish) that would say gametje instead of gamepje. So you were not entirely wrong.
Apart from that it could be taken to mean "little sperm or egg cell".
Afrikaans also users the -tje ending for diminutives.
The Dutch naming immediately struck my eye. I wonder.. it is not an easy name to pronounce for, say, English-speaking people, is it? Even in Dutch it does roll from the tongue a bit awkwardly imho.
Reminds me a lot of AirConsole, which I once had a subscription to.
But ultimately it all comes down to the game quality and how buggy it is. If people can't submit their answer or reconnect, that wears down support. But people tolerate jackbox's absolutely terrible system because the games are great.
Did you have problems trying it out? I've been monitoring the metrics. Seems to be healthy but maybe I am missing something?
I kinda guessed you would be Dutch given the name. Lovely idee, will try this out when I have time. Bedankt!
Cool idea, but you need to polish the UI. It looks completely generated by LLM (that's bad)
Author here, UI needs some work indeed. Given that I am a one man show and I'm mainly a backend developer, I did what I could. I've been trying to improve where I can.
What makes you say it is LLM generated? I have used some AI for images/avatars etc but not any of the frontend code/style. Using MUI with React for most of the components.
Open to any collaborators with good design/frontend skills.
> Open to any collaborators with good design/frontend skills.
Are you inviting people to join your business, or is there an open source project to contribute to?
I'm open to people joining the business. At the moment, it is not open source.
imho it’s absolutely fine, and doesn’t look AI generated at all. AI would be way more generic / polished, this design actually reminds me a bit of 10-20 years ago websites, it’s cool and retro in a way.
> this design actually reminds me a bit of 10-20 years ago websites
what do you think the LLMs were trained on
It looks fine to me, but I am fullstack and build apps that need to function.
To me the UI looks clean and fine for a first version, definitely not like a [insert famous website] clone, which is what comes easily with llms.
Low friction co-op games are an underserved market, but none of these games are for me. I'd be a user if it was a challenging co-op tower defense or bullet hell game, even if the graphics were bad.
Man, I really want a good coop tower defense game! Loved the warcraft 3 tower defense co-op games!
Consider Legion TD 2 or Bloons TD 6 in Steam, they have some co-op. I recommend Bloons TD 6.
This is a great idea! I'm not a fan of Jackbox's "pack" distribution model, so supporting any project that challenges it :)
Nice. The game I was hosting kept dying with "Oh no, Something went wrong :(". However, I like the concept. These are good for personal social gatherings, but has great potential for more public places, too (like pubs/bars).
Sorry to hear you had some problems. Can I ask what browser(s)/device you were using? Or what game you were playing? I have a few other exceptions/stacktraces to look into, any extra info would be helpful.
Good idea with the pubs. I also considered approaching places with Karaoke rooms. Like a little private game room party while you are out.
Most of the games are designed to be playable with 3-16 people (even 16 is pushing it for some). Would potentially need to design some games for a larger audience in a bar.
I hosted Canvas Clash in Firefox on Windows 10, with myself, on a Samsung phone, and two AIs.
Trivia games are great for bars - finding/creating quality trivia content, and lots of it, may be the greater challenge.
It would be especially saleable if the UI theme can be customized to the establishment - even just a custom background. The market would be for smaller, independent (non-chain) places that won't pay for, or have access to, the more expensive companies that provide this kind of application to bars.
Anyway, I wish you success!
How long did it take for you to make this? I'm working on a similar branch of idea, started 30 days ago. Any advice for me? :)
It's been a part-time project since January 2023. I left my part-time job in July and started on this full-time in August after some vacation. Here's a recent blog post about going full-time: https://blog.gametje.com/posts/2025-09-16/
Would love to connect and trade some ideas. You can find my contact details at the bottom of the blog.
Very cool! What engine/tech stack did you use to write the games themselves?
The frontend is written in Typescript/React (Vite) and the backend is Java + Spring Boot + Redis + Postgres. I'm using WebSockets for interactivity.
Ah yes, the game I know as 'pictionary'. There used to be an implementation of this on a website using Macromedia Shockwave. You'd have public rooms where you could start guessing. The person with most points would be next drawer. It was fantastic in start, but also a place where young kids would play, and some let us just define them as older kids who would ruin it by doing things like drawing dick pictures. Eventually, nobody would use Shockwave anymore, and you wouldn't even want to run such in a production environment anymore.
As for the name, boompje means little tree (kleine boom) but boontje means little bean (kleine boon) and koninkje means little king (kleine koning) but little queen would be koninginnetje (kleine koningin), and finally hoopje would mean little hope (kleine hoop). So while -tje is default, there are variations. If the word ends with -m, you do -pje. In this case, we have a word derived from English (game) and we need to use the way it sounds (geem) hence geempje (gamepje).
For a foreigner dealing with The Netherlands and Dutch, gametje sounds cute. It fits the role, so to say. In multiple ways. This is a kids/family game, and kids make simple mistakes in grammar when learning their native language, like adult foreigners do when learning a new language. The earlier mentioned website (I forgot the name, something like iSketch? Yes that was it [1]) existed before emoji were a thing. You'd have emoticons but not as part of a font , unless you count say wingdings or using (foreign language) symbols like :-) and more complex ones such as ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISketch
related on 'What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)' at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45869146#45886256
> I'm working on a local multiplayer party game platform, a lovechild of Jackbox Games and Mario Party: https://gamingcouch.com
I actually know these guys. Definitely give their platform a look!
That's my project (and comment), thanks for the mention! Local multiplayer is simply the best, and the more options there are, the better!
Very cool, congrats on the launch...will try it with my friends soon! Wish this was around during covid lockdowns lol
I don't think it looks as AI generated as people say. It might not be the most flashy UI but it looks good enough to me. Good luck with the launch!
I have to say that as a Dutch person it always pains me to see products launch internationally with a Dutch name, for some reason it just feels super cringy. Do other people who's native language isn't English have that as well with their own language?
i have the same in dutch. same with music and tv shows tho. i guess its just a perception of our own language since most our media is in english?
ok
No idea how to pronounce it
Although strictly speaking it is wrongly spelled as you mentioned, you missed that "Game met je" means "to (play a) game with you (or someone)", which could contract to "gametje" as well (and a similar contraction for "gamepje" would be much more violent ;)). I think this makes "gametje" an excellent name for a party game platform!
I feel like a moron for never seeing this after 2.5 years :-D. Thanks for pointing it out! Maybe I'll make a cute animation of the contraction for a loading screen. I'll make sure to credit you.
Well, if Dutch is your second language for sure it is difficult to see.
"Gamen" is one of those anglicisms that has made it into the language, with ugly but in this case useful conjugations: