WhosIt

The home page
The leaderboard with more people
A locked in card with multiple people to guess from

Inspiration

We were inspired by classic DEI exercises, which aim to promote a culture of welcoming differences. For look and experience, we wanted to create something reminiscent of our favorite icebreakers and online games like JackBox and Gartic Phone. The best of these games have some element of mystery and anonymity, and we wanted to make that central to our play. We aim to pose perhaps the ultimate challenge crucial for achieving true inclusivity: how well do you really know people?

What it does

A host sets the questions: with one question per round, these will determine the play. Questions can range from "What was your favorite food as a kid?" to "When was a time you felt excluded?" to even "What makes you angry?" or "Describe yourself in seven words" (like Seven Word Biographies)--the limit is your imagination, bounded only by your goals for the game.

The host can then share the game to their players with the room code or simply sharing the URL to their room as seen at the top of the browser; ie, https://whosit.beeply.studio/room/[code].

Players will have a minute each round to answer that round's questions. After everyone has responded, players are brought to see everyone else's response to that question. (In successive rounds, all of each players' responses will be grouped in a single card.) Players will try to label each other person's cards with the name of the person who authored its responses, strategizing and talking to the other players about who's who.

When a player is certain of their selection, they can lock in their guess. When you guess wrong, you don't get points. You incur a 15 pt penalty for not answering a question.

A correct guess in the:

First round: 20pts
Second round: 15pts
Third round+: 10pts

Once all the questions have been asked and the final guessing round is over, all selections are locked in and point totals are shown to all. Commence the whoa-I-had-no-idea-that-was-you's!

How we built it

Built with Tanstack Router + React (TypeScript), Socket.io, shadcn UI

Challenges we ran into

Time management! Trying to do everything we wanted to within 24 hours was our main struggle.
React state changes and mutability/rerendering.
Deciding on a final design that would communicate friendliness and warmth.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Getting real-time updates to work across rooms
Setting up rooms/invite codes

What we learned

We hadn't used shadcn or SocketIo before, and getting to use these technologies for the first time was a fun challenge.

What's next for WhosIt

Customize the time for rounds
Question presets to help people set up games faster, with different DEI goals--or maybe even for simply getting to know your friends better! Presets could even include JackBox-like "complete the lyrics" prompts.
Show point totals while you're playing
Show if your locked-in guesses were right as you play (to give more benefit to locking in)
Fast forward button for during the who's each response guessing period
Submit what you've answered so far if you don't respond in time