Telemaphoneroo
- About the game
- Game rules
- Some fun custom rules
- The license
- Why this license?
- Thanks
- Infrastructure credits
About the game
Telemaphoneroo is an online telephone game.
To host a game of Telemaphoneroo go to telemaphoneroo.glitch.me, enter your name (you can choose any name you like!), and click Host game. On hosting a game, telemaphoneroo will give you a URL that you can send to your friends to invite them to play with you.
Game rules
By default, the game asks players to first enter a 2-word phrase, then on subsequent turns they are asked to add a syllable to phrases entered by the other players. As the game progresses, the initial phrases become more and more unrecognisable (for instance, telephone game might become telemaphoneroo gamabarane).
Custom settings also allow the person hosting the game to define their own prompts or game rules. This makes it possible to create a variety of different games using the same basic format. It turns out there's a lot you can do with the telephone game format!
Some fun custom rules:
First prompt | Subsequent prompts |
---|---|
Enter a noun |
Enter an adjective before the noun Credit: @DouglasFlinders |
Enter an object + "of" e.g. "hat of" |
Add a noun or verb either side of the "of" Credit: @_kaymay |
Enter an emoji | Add another emoji |
Enter a word | Add a word that rhymes with the last word |
Give us a beat! | Keep the beat going! |
The license
Telemaphoneroo was created by Niall Moody.
The game and its source code is released under the Anti-Capitalist Software License. You can read the full text of the license and its rationale here, but if you're looking for a summary, the important part is:
This is anti-capitalist software, released for free use by individuals
and organizations that do not operate by capitalist principles.
You can view the game's source code on glitch.com. As long as you abide by the license you are free to remix the game in any way you want.
Why this license?
The ACSL page lists a number of very good reasons you might want to use this license for your projects.
Personally, I chose this license because I worry about the ways freely-available, open source software can be exploited by corporations and organisations inflicting demonstrable harm on people and the planet.
Specifically, I do not want to find, months down the line, that this silly, playful game I made has somehow ended up being used as, say, a team-building exercise by a company like Nestlé known for exploiting child- and forced-labour (among - many - other things). Or by the military. Or the police.
These may be unlikely scenarios, and it's entirely possible that nobody is going to play this game anyway. But as much as I possibly can, I would like to avoid adding to or perpetuating oppression and suffering, even indirectly.
Thanks
This game was born out of the conversations we've had, and the games we've played, over the last year or so at Biome Collective. I am indebted to everyone who's taken part in our weekly sharings and (sometimes sporadic) games nights. I am incredibly grateful to everyone at Biome.
Infrastructure Credits
Telemaphoneroo is built on the following platforms, frameworks, libraries, and fonts:
- Glitch - The web hosting platform the game runs on.
- Node.js - Javascript runtime running on glitch.
- Fastify - Web framework to serve pages from glitch.
- fastify-formbody - Fastify plugin to handle HTML forms.
- fastify-static - Fastify plugin to serve static pages.
- Handlebars - Web page template engine.
- point-of-view - Fastify plugin to support template engines like Handlebars.
- Socket.IO - Web networking library.
- Twemoji - Cross-platform emoji support.
- Emoji Button - Javascript emoji selector widget.
- Fredoka One - Main font.
- Open Sans - About page font.
(also, the main (light mode) background gradient is taken directly from the first example on this MDN page, which I originally used as a placeholder, but ended up liking so much that I kept it)
Niall Moody, 2021.