Openbox

Early-planning open-source party game platform — Jackbox-style mini games you can tweak, extend, and host peer-to-peer.

Openbox is still in early planning — design and technology choices are not locked yet.

The intention is an open-source take on party games like Jackbox. My friends and I play together regularly; some of the best sessions are silly party games. The catch with Jackbox is versioning and ownership: the games are not wildly expensive, but someone in the group has to own them — and when that person is offline, the night stops. Many mini games would also be more fun with small tweaks.

Openbox is the answer I have in mind: play your own party games, tweak them to taste, or build new mini games — for free. The plan is peer-to-peer, so no central server is required. Players keep full control over what they run and how they play it.

Additional info

Highlights

  • Open-source Jackbox-like party games — tweak built-ins or author new mini games.
  • Peer-to-peer hosting — no central server; the group owns the session.
  • Host installs, guests join via browser (including mobile); stack TBD: Godot, Java/React or something else completely.

I am still in early development planning and deciding which technologies fit. More traditional stacks like Java and React are on the table; so is a more game-oriented route with Godot. Right now I am collecting which kinds of mini games we actually want — different ideas imply different technical needs.

If we lean towards involved mini games with physics or 3D, Godot starts to make sense. If we stay closer to classic Jackbox-style prompts and UI, Java and React may be enough. Accessibility is a hard requirement: ideally only the host installs anything; everyone else joins from a browser. Not all of our friends play on PC — consoles and phones matter — so mobile play is part of the plan from the start.

For now the work is mostly perspective-setting: what we want to play, and how those wishes map to concrete features.