Planning and Picking a Game Night

I built What Should We Play? because my friends and I spent too long choosing a game. The first version concentrated on the recommendation, but that only helped once we had found a night when enough people were free.

The current app keeps both decisions in one shared Game Night. Plan compares availability. Pick ranks games using the group’s libraries and preferences. The score is visible, so the group can see why a game was suggested rather than accepting a number from an unexplained algorithm.

Why planning came first

Planning works without an account. Guests open one link and mark dates as available, maybe or unavailable. On a phone this is a short step-by-step flow; on a larger screen the same information appears as a heatmap.

The ranking accounts for the proposed duration, time zones, weekend hours and the minimum number of players. Once the group agrees, the host can lock the result and download a calendar invite.

Game selection uses persistent accounts because the recommendation depends on information that should still be there next time. Steam and Google sign-in support profiles across devices. Steam libraries and IGDB data are converted into one internal game record before the scoring runs.

Showing why a game scored well

The app scores games out of 100. It considers ownership, player count, genre, playtime, price, interest and whether the game is familiar or new to the group. Modes such as Co-op Night, Backlog and Cheap change the weighting.

I show the factor breakdown alongside the total. A group can see that a game scored well because everyone owns it, for example, while also seeing that its player count or price is a weaker fit.

Agreement is shown separately from the average score. If most people rate a game highly and one person strongly dislikes it, averaging those ratings would hide information the group probably wants before choosing.

Keeping “not tonight” temporary

Ownership, ratings and favourites belong to a person’s saved profile. “Not tonight” belongs only to the current Game Night.

Keeping that temporary choice out of the profile means it does not affect later recommendations. Saved libraries and friend groups can still be reused, while each session gets its own shortlist.

Private libraries, prices and host actions

A private Steam profile cannot provide a library, so the app needs a manual route rather than pretending the recommendation is complete. Price services can also respond slowly. Prices are cached so opening the same room does not depend on another successful request.

Anyone with the shared link can take part, but only the host can lock a time or remove a game. Those actions require a signed session cookie rather than trusting the link alone.

Discord reminders introduced a different constraint. The free hosting plan runs scheduled work once per day, so reminder jobs record what they have already sent and do not post the same message twice.

Current version

The live app now combines scheduling and game selection in one room. Guests can plan dates without an account. Signed-in players can save libraries, preferences and friend groups for later Game Nights.

Try the live app or read the source.