Overview

This is an unofficial web app for the popular online multiplayer game, Balderdash. The first iteration of this app can be found in this repo and this version attempts to improve upon the original by adding more features and improving the overall user experience. What's new?

• Extra categories, not just rare words
• Support for custom definitions
• Ability to double bluff
• Ability to introduce AI/NPC guesses to make the game more interesting
• Ability to invite players into the session
• Optional timer that forces players to respond quickly
• Ability to kick unresponsive players
• Ability to resume game after a player disconnects
• Feedback collection mechanisms allowing players to share their opinions on the game
• Bug fixes and better handling of edge cases
• Dark mode, improved UI and better desktop support
• Hopefully cleaner codebase, improved database security and better performance

Here is a screenshot of the app flow:

Gameplay

• You need at least 3 people to play
• One person sets up the game, the others join
• The game is played in rounds where one person will be the "dasher" and the others will be "guessers"
• The dasher selects a challenging prompt (e.g. rare word) and the guessers first try to either guess it or come up with a convincing fake response (e.g. word definition)
• The dasher marks submitted guesses and points are awarded to the correct submissions
• The rest of the guesses are submitted into a shared pool and the guessers then need to vote for the correct response
• Points are awarded based on the number of votes received (see the Rules tab for more info about scoring)

For Developers

This app is built using SvelteKit and Firebase. All contributions are wholeheartedly welcome. Here is how you can help:

• Submit an issue
• Submit a pull request with an improvement (I suggest you start with an issue first to discuss the change)
• Add a new word category into this repository
• Play the game and provide feedback

If you need to run this app locally, then first run bun install (I used bun but you can use NPM or whenever you prefer), then bun dev will start the server. To run tests use bun test:lib. Note that you will need to set up a Firebase project (and most likely a PostHog project but don't worry -- both are entirely free) and add the necessary environment variables (inside .env) to run the app. To see the environment variables you'll need checkout .github/workflows/ci.yaml and src/lib/firebase/server.js.

If you would like to work on this project but you are struggling to get started, please feel free to reach out and I would be happy to help! :)