Building phone + TV games
Making social games easier to discover, start, and play together without a console.
- When
- 2024
- Where
- Independent
- What I did
- Product design, React Native development, Prototyping, User testing, 0–1 product strategy, Branding
Outcomes
- Built a playable phone-and-TV multiplayer game, Trivia Dash, in React Native.
- Joined the Antler residency, and the initial concept received Canada Media Fund support.
- Tested demand with smoke tests, then cut scope from a multi-game platform to one game.
The problem
Living-room party games are fun, but most need a console and a fiddly setup. I wanted to bring quick social games to the TV that non-gamers could start in seconds with the phone already in their hand.
Testing the idea and cutting scope
User interviews and early hardware prototypes led to two big changes before I wrote the production netcode.
From screencasting to a TV app
Screencasting from a phone added Wi-Fi lag and pairing failures across consumer TVs. Running the game on the smart TV itself, with a 4-letter join code for phones, made joining instant.
From a multi-game arcade to one game
I ran mock app-store landing pages as ads on TikTok and Snapchat to test interest. After that, I cut scope from a multi-game platform to one replayable game, Trivia Dash, built on a multiplayer state architecture I could reuse.
Designing for the room
In living-room playtests, whenever the question text was on the phone, the room went quiet as players looked down at their laps.
I cut the phone controller down to large multiple-choice tiles and a buzzer, so players kept their eyes on the TV and each other.
Outcome and what I learned
I built Trivia Dash as a complete, playable React Native game for smart TVs, with phones as controllers. It was supported by the Canada Media Fund and the Antler residency, and it wasn't released publicly. Designing and coding it myself kept feedback loops short. I could spot a pacing problem in an evening playtest and try a new round mechanic the next morning.