node.js ko
Guess Friends for Facebook!
Guess Friends for Facebook!
by Kansas City Geek Night
Remember that old card game “Guess Who”? Where you asked questions to narrow down the face your opponent picked? Yeah? Awesome! We’re building the same thing, only with your Facebook Friends' profile pictures!!
How to play:
Start a game with a friend. 24 mutual friends (or as many as you have plus a few from each of you) will be selected for the “game board”. Each of you will also be given a random “mystery person”.
Your job is to ask questions to narrow down who your opponent’s “mystery person” is, and vice versa. With each guess, your “bonus point” total is reduced by 10 points. When you feel you have it narrowed down and are ready to guess, click “Guess Me!”
If you are right, you win the round and are granted 50 points, plus whatever bonus points you have remaining. But be careful! If you’re wrong, your opponent wins and is given 50 points.
Judging Instructions
It should work in modern browsers, but we developed in Chrome and Firefox.
We debated including a “Random Opponent” option, but thought it shared too much info. Therefore, we encourage judges to ask a friend with a lot of mutual friends to explore the app! :–)
Who
clintandrewhall — Kansas City, MO
mhemesath — Kansas City, MO
whereisciao — Kansas City, MO
andPixels — Kansas City
How
SERVICES Heroku MongoHQ Pusher
DEPENDENCIES “async” : “0.1.9”, “base64” : “2.0.3”, “connect-mongo” : “0.1.5”, “mongodb” : “>=0.8.8”, “ejs” : “0.4.3”, “everyauth” : “0.2.18”, “express” : “2.4.5”, “express-resource” : “0.2.1”, “log4js” : “0.3.8”, “mongoose” : “2.0.2”, “nko” : “0.1.0”, “stylus” : “0.15.1”, “underscore” : “1.1.7”, “knox” : “0.0.9”, “pusher” : “0.0.2”
Votes
Your Vote
Voting is now closed.
Other Votes
(51)
AudreyLojudge- contestant
Thank you so much! Yeah, the help page was one of our very last additions, (one of those things you don’t think about until the end) :–)
Watch for our updates after the competition!
robhawkesjudgeUnfortunately I didn’t have time to play this with a friend but I absolutely love the concept. Nice use of existing and “real” data!
- contestant
Thanks so much for your review!
mcouzinet
contestant
pengwynnjudge
davidujudgeWell done, but no fun with nobody to play with.
- contestant
Yeah, we actually had a “Play with Random Person” feature, but took it out because it was just too exposing and, frankly, creepy. :–)
After the competition, we’ll be working on the invite and alerting modules we started. It’ll be easier to find friends to play then…!
purincessjudgeI tried but didn’t really get into it. There’s a huge barrier for me to join via facebook, then invite all my friends to play with me.
- contestant
Yeah, it’s a common complaint; we’re working to add other services and guess strategies, but Facebook was the first, largest, and applied to the most of our friends.
Keep an eye on us in the months after the competition! :–)
ericflojudgeI like the concept, and the design is very nice, but I found myself wishing for asynchronous play. Without async play, I can’t see myself using it much at all.
- contestant
Hmmm… can you elaborate? Kind of like Words with Friends, if you make a move, the game goes to “waiting for friend to move” status.
Was there a different feature you expected to behave differently?
3rd-Eden
contestantA design that immediately attracts your attention, however as soon a wanted to login i got welcome by a big ass facebook screen telling me you can post on my wall, steal my friends update bla bla, personally for that is a real turn off, because I like my facebook nice and private. Without any alternate login options. I just decided this app was not for me.
So I agree with @purincess ’s comments
- contestant
Well, we’re open to suggestions as to how to build a game board of mutual Facebook friends without using Facebook permissions?
In the future, we’ll be experimenting with Twitter following/followers, perhaps even LinkedIn / Google circles. Feel free to check us out then.
dustinsmith1024
contestantFun idea. Design was great and polished even if there wasn’t a time limit. I had a few issues having to refresh during game setup but everything else worked async inside the game.
Picky…but it felt awkward working on the right side of the screen the whole time. Maybe put the question box in the middle more.
Overall awesome.
- contestant
Glad you enjoyed it! We’re looking into ways to make the game board easier to use; thanks for the ideas!
Thanks for the review!
bcherryjudge
timothytcleejudge
therazorbladejudgeAs others have notes, could not get the invites to work. The game idea is cool but the requirements (mutual friends) and overall creepy factors are going to prevent many people from playing. Maybe doing this with Twitter is easier for most people (and you can use latest tweets as hints).
- contestant
Yeah, we had a feeling when we started that might be the case… but we had so many of our friends saying it would be fun, (I have about 8 games going as we speak!)
We’re definitely building a Twitter feature, and the “tweets as hints” idea is on our radar. We were thinking a “ruling out” tweet or fact from their profile?
At any rate, thanks for your review! Look for us in the future, as well. :–)
jasonhjudge- contestant
Thank you for judging our app! Any feedback or future features you’d like to see are appreciated, (we plan to continue development).
zgryw
contestantSweet design, simple yet usable.
Smart port of board game into social world.
- contestant
Thank you for your review! :-D
azukiwasher
contestantBeautiful Web UI! But I’m afraid I have no facebook account…
- contestant
Look for some Twitter features soon! :–)
mikealjudge
nddrylliogjudgeUnfortunately I couldn’t try it, because I have long deleted my Facebook account :( However, the design looks really attractive, I like the concept very much, and I’m pretty sure it works really well. Kudos, would’ve loved to try!
- contestant
Aw, that’s a shame!! But thank you for the kind words and your review…! I know Jacob, (our designer) appreciates your feedback! :-D
We’ll be putting up more detailed screenshots and “game play” vids after the competition. We’re even considering a Twitter version. ;–) Stay tuned!
- nddrylliogjudge
I definitely would’ve loved a Twitter version – and would love to try it when it’s ready! Just ping me then :)
visnupjudgefelt kinda spammy to have to get my friends on to play with me. I went ahead and tried to invite some other judges to play with me, but that seemed utterly broken (tried both webkit and chrome stable).
very pretty though, but broken.
- contestant
Yeah, unfortunately we had trouble with Facebook notifications in the 11th hour and couldn’t stabilize it, (one of the downsides of a 48hr coding competition, of course!)
Even though you’ve already logged your review, I’d encourage you to send the link to anyone with whom you are friends on Facebook… they’ll see you as available to play as soon as you sign in. We’re not storing anything other than the FB token and your name outside of a session store, so, if you trust us at all, give it a shot? :–)
Thanks again for taking the time to review our entry!
- visnupjudge
will take a look later today.
jeffreyjudgeI liked this. Though I didn’t actually get a chance to play because given the nature of what this is, I didn’t want to be inviting random people to play me. Some sort of screen-shot preview that shows moments in the gameplay would be very useful.
- contestant
Hi! If any of your friends have authorized the app, you’ll be able to see them at the top of your “games” list in the lobby, so you can play someone you know! If you get a chance, please give it a whirl… our friends are really enjoying it, (I’m playing with 10 of mine as we speak) :–)
And thanks for the suggestion! We’re planning on flushing out a lot of our ideas after the competition… we’ll definitely include more of a “walk-through” when we do.
Thanks again for taking the time to judge our entry!
davidmoffitt
contestantThe “invite” function seems broken? Design is pretty, the actual interface could use use some help – for example, scrolling through a seemingly randomly sorted list of friends versus having some sort of “sort by” or “search” was frustrating. I can’t speak to the rest of the UI since the lobby is as far as I got :(
- contestant
Thanks for your review! Yeah, we ran out of time for the sort feature we had planned. And we removed the “Random Opponent” feature in the end, as it just seemed too invasive.
It’s a shame you didn’t get a chance to play! But rest assured, we’ll be flushing this out after the judging: our friends are having too much fun with it not to! :–) Cheers!
phillyqueso
contestant
I’m an thoroughly impressed by how clean the design of your app is. Your concept is a great way to connect people. Just make sure you use colors and fonts that are easier to read (ie – the “help page”). Other than that, terrific job! One of my favorites thus far!