Game Night Wallet: Counting Not Required

Stop counting. Start winning. Game Night Wallet replaces paper bills with live play-money: pay friends, run the bank, keep game night moving.

Comment

Inspiration

It's game night. Classic property-trading board game. Ages from early 20s to mid-40s.

Nobody knows the rules. Nobody knows the starting money. Nobody wants to be the banker. Once we finally start, cash tracking falls apart, and packing every bill back into the box at the end is somehow worse.

That night doesn’t need better players. It needs the bank to stop being the weakest part of the game.

So I built Game Night Wallet: a digital play-money wallet for board game night. Live balances. Shared activity. No paper chaos. No reluctant banker. No counting required.

What it does

  • Host starts a game; friends join with a code or QR
  • Starting balances and payments stay synced live
  • Pay players or the bank, with optional notes
  • Custom currency packs (on your phone or at gamenightwallet.com/maker)
  • Privacy-first: play money only; personal photos and custom art stay on your device unless you choose to publish them

How I built it

Cross-platform with React Native and Expo (iOS & Android), Expo Router, and Zustand. Backend on Supabase (auth, realtime, Postgres). Media on Cloudflare R2. Motion and UI with Reanimated, Gesture Handler, and Skia. Monetization via RevenueCat and Google Mobile Ads. Builds through EAS. Custom bills on a small companion web Maker.

Challenges

Making play-money feel real without turning into a finance app: cash that fans and reads clearly on a phone, custom bill art that shows up before the first payment lands, keeping realtime costs sane as more friends join, and locking every write behind proper auth checks. The hard part wasn’t syncing a number; it was making the whole app feel as sharp as the deals on the game board.

What I learned

Game night friction is usually logistics, not strategy. Fix the bank, and the night gets its energy back. Ship the thing that removes the annoying part, then polish until paying rent feels good. Apple App Store approvals are cumbersome; don't forget to attach your products/subscriptions to your review, or end up wasting a week of review time! Also if you're building with Expo, EAS Update is your best friend when your app is in production.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates

Submission history