🕵️ Find the Impostor

A local-first party game PWA where players guess the secret word while impostors try to blend in

🎮 Play Demo 🎮

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Note

The AI demo is currently running on a personal budget, which has now been used up, so you might notice some errors or fallback words. If you enjoy the project and feel generous, you can buy me a coffee or sponsor me on GitHub.

🎮 How to Play

📋 Game Setup

1. Configure Players: Set up 3-10 players with custom names
2. Choose Categories: Select word categories (animals, food, movies, etc.) or create your own
3. Set Impostors: Decide how many players will be impostors (1-3 recommended)
4. Optional Hints: Enable hints to help impostors blend in

🎭 Role Assignment

• 👥 Regular Players: Know the secret word and must work together to find impostors
• 🕵️ Impostors: Don't know the secret word but can see optional hints to help them guess

📱 Word Reveal Phase

• Players take turns looking at their phone/device privately
• Regular players see the exact secret word (e.g., "Pizza")
• Impostors see only category hints (e.g., "Food item, often round, has toppings")

💬 Discussion Rounds

1. Each player says one word related to the secret word

• Regular players try to give clues without being too obvious
• Impostors try to guess and blend in based on others' words

2. Final Discussion: After 2 Rounds open a discussion about who might be the impostor

🗳️ Voting & Results

• All players vote for who they think is the impostor
• Reveal roles and see who won:
  • Regular Players Win: If they correctly identify all impostors
  • Impostors Win: If they avoid detection or correctly guess the secret word

🎯 Strategy Tips

• For Regular Players: Give specific but not obvious clues, watch for players who seem unsure
• For Impostors: Listen carefully to others' clues, ask strategic questions, don't be too vague or too specific

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✨ Features

🎯 Core Gameplay

• Impostor Mechanics: One or more players don't know the secret word and must bluff their way through
• Flexible Configuration: Customize player count (3-10), impostor count, categories, and difficulty
• Multi-Language Support: Available in English and German with next-intl
• Hint System: Optional hints for impostors to level the playing field

🌐 Progressive Web App

• 📱 Installable: Add to home screen on any device
• 🔌 Offline First: Play without internet connection
• 📊 Local Data: All game data stored locally with IndexedDB

🛠️ Developer Experience

• 🎨 Modern UI: Built with Shadcn and Tailwind CSS
• ⚡ Type Safety: Full TypeScript coverage
• 🔄 State Management: Persistent game state with Zustand
• 🚀 Performance: Next.js 15 with Turbopack for fast development

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🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18.0 or later
• npm, yarn, or pnpm

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/KnotzerIO/find-the-impostor.git
cd find-the-impostor

# Install dependencies
npm install
# or
yarn install
# or
pnpm install

Development

# Start development server with Turbopack
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Building for Production

# Build the application
npm run build

# Start production server
npm run start

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🏗️ Tech Stack

Frontend Framework

• Next.js 15.3 - React framework with App Router
• React 19 - UI library with latest features
• TypeScript 5 - Type-safe JavaScript

UI & Styling

• Tailwind CSS 4 - Utility-first CSS framework
• Radix UI - Unstyled, accessible UI components
• Lucide React - Beautiful & consistent icons
• class-variance-authority - Component variant management

State & Data Management

• Zustand - Lightweight state management
• Dexie.js - IndexedDB wrapper for local storage
• next-intl - Internationalization

Analytics & Monitoring

• Umami - Privacy-focused web analytics
• Sentry - Error tracking and performance monitoring

Development Tools

• ESLint - Code linting
• Turbopack - Fast development builds