Poker and Liar's Dice over Bluetooth Low Energy
I remember being able to play poker and trivia with random strangers on cross country flights on the IFE screens. For some reason, they took that away, so I decided to make some myself. The first two games are here: Poker - * iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/airplane-mode-poker/id6791247916 * Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.testco.airplanemode.poker
Liar's Dice - * Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.testco.airplanemode.liarsdice * [iOS still in review]
BLE was the choice to have it work cross-platform and support multiple players. There is no Internet access and there is no analytics or app tracking. The game literally doesn't ask for the permissions to access the Internet.
It costs $2.99 as a one time unlock to host and $0 to join a game.
Thoughts on other games?
Clickable links, because offline mode is pretty cool.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/airplane-mode-poker/id67912479...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.testco.airp...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.testco.airp...
The host sets up a GATT server and the other players have a client role.
The other option was setting up a game via whatever WiFi network was available, but many hotspots now restrict peer to peer access. For cross platform support, iOS doesn't allow local hotspot creation (which could have been an alternative) even thought Android does. Bluetooth was the option that all platforms could support without having to deal with third party WiFi.
This is peak hacker energy: see a communication protocol and immediately ask, ‘Can we play poker on it?