Show HN: Blank White Cards – Global Drawing Party Game

[mcteamster]

G’day HN, this year I've been remaking my online adaption of the classic party game 1000 Blank White Cards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_Blank_White_Cards)

I started this project in 2019/2020, originally as a drinking game for house parties, but it transformed into a way for my friends to keep in touch during the long Melbourne COVID lockdowns.

Essentially anyone can draw and submit cards to a common ‘Global Deck’. You then pick them up and do what they say (or not). The whole premise of this game is that there are no concrete rules - they’re forever evolving.

Over the years people from around the world have contributed nearly 500 cards. I have to say I’m impressed that it’s probably 80% high vs 20% low quality content. The art ranges from awesome to hilariously crude and the gameplay is somewhat coherent - but always hilarious.

There are global servers for multiplayer custom games where people can jump into the same session and move cards around a bit more like a real tabletop game. I’ve recently added support for Discord Activities (https://discord.com/discovery/applications/13895086247742013...) so you can play directly inside a call.

Start with a blank slate and save your custom deck creations to re-upload in later games. Coming up on the feature roadmap is a proper deck builder/editor mode.

It’s been a really interesting challenge trying to create a game that has no rules, but I’ve learnt a lot in the process. My biggest takeaway is that human creativity has no (lower) bound :)

I hope you have as much fun playing it as I do making it, and that one day we’ll reach the magical 1000 card mark.

~mcteamster

P.S. this wouldn't have been possible without great open source software like + https://boardgame.io/ + https://wiredjs.com/ + https://www.fiala.space/atrament/ = https://github.com/mcteamster/white

[zainbahari]

Very nice.

Really clean.

It looks like you are recording the sessions with Microsoft Clarity. You mentioned it is anonymous, but do you really need heatmaps and session recordings?

[mcteamster]

Thanks! Great question - the heatmaps and traces really help with refining gameplay UX like identifying dead click areas and reducing the number of interactions for popular functions.

Of course any client-side RUM can only give partial insights. Always open to hearing any direct feedback suggestions or improvements.