What is NewsGamer?
It started with a newspaper and a highlighter.
NewsGamer is a word game for iPhone: you get a short paragraph and a letter, and you race to find ten words that start with it. Before it was an app, it was a game two brothers played every morning.
Cricket fans crowded the city centre on Sunday as the captain carried the cup through the cheering crowd. Children climbed lamp posts for a clearer view, and cafés closed early to celebrate. The council confirmed the parade will continue next year.
The story
The morning paper
My father subscribed to a daily newspaper and read it every morning. My elder brother, Dushyant, and I had other plans for it.
We'd pick a letter, say C, and each grab a highlighter. Then we'd race through the paper marking every word that started with it. Whoever highlighted 30 words first won. We loved it, until life took a different turn (a good one, to be honest).
1,400 km from home
I cleared IIT JEE in 2018 and went to IIT (ISM) to study Mining Engineering. College was almost 1,400 km from home, and from that newspaper.
The idea
One day in my second semester it hit me hard: I couldn't play that game with my brother anymore. So I decided to build it.
Keep in mind I had no idea how to build anything. I was decent at competitive programming, but that was it. A few seniors guided me through web development, and that's how NewsGamer began.
The first NewsGamer
The first version was a real-time multiplayer web game. You signed in with Google, then started a game and invited people, or joined someone else's. It had:
- Live scoresEveryone sees everyone's score while they play, which makes every game a race.
- Single playerFor when nobody else is around and you have a few minutes.
- ProfilesPast games and scores, a bio, and a public link anyone can open, even logged out.
- Lobby quick chatTap “waiting for someone” and everybody in the lobby knows you're ready.
- ConfettiWhen you win. Obviously.
- TeasersStickers you collect as achievements. Win, and the others get teased with yours.
Now on iPhone
NewsGamer is played in the iPhone app now. The idea hasn't changed: a paragraph, a letter, and a race. A lot has been added around it.
- Race to 10
- A multiplayer game is a race: watch every player move along the track as they find words.
- The alphabet journey
- 26 letters in order. Clear a letter by winning a game on it; finish a section to win a teaser.
- Your vocabulary
- Long-press any word in a game to save it with its meaning and an example.
- Leaderboard
- Points from every game decide who's on top.
Who can play it?
Anybody. You need an iPhone, an internet connection and someone to play with. And some free time, of course.
Why should you play it?
I'm not sure why I put this question here. Why do you play any game? Just for fun, I guess.
What's next?
I'm always thinking about how to make it better. On my list:
- Pausing a game
- Asking the others to pause
- Private games
Pick a letter. Grab a highlighter.
Made by Harsh Vats. LinkedIn, GitHub.