Homemade online Hotel game crashes mid-game

A homemade online Hotel game that crashes mid-game

Nostalgia for nineties board games has a technical problem. A homemade project to play the classic Hotel board game online kicked off with a test match and a server that didn't last long: it crashed halfway through the game. The idea is to recreate the traditional board game, but with remote matches and built-in voice chat. Local mode, according to its creator, is more than under control. Online, not so much.

The start was modest. An unknown player joined and the match pogre just enough before the server gave up. "My server got screwed halfway through the match," sums up the person behind the invention. The test ended there, with the table half-played and the feeling that development is still in its infancy.

What the online Hotel game is and how it works

The concept is simple: the same nineties board game, with its colorful boards and its hotels, but played through the browser. The difference lies in online mode, which allows remote matches and a voice chat to talk during the game. That chat is precisely what remains to be tested. The creator admits it: he wants to plug in his microphone and check whether the other player can hear him.

The local part is solved. The connected part is not. And that's where the first reasonable doubt appears: such a colorful board doesn't handle dark mode well. "It's not a game that handles dark mode well, I wouldn't even know how to implement it with such a colorful board," he admits. A request from a player with tired eyes went unanswered.

The server that didn't survive the first match

The first online test ended early. A player joined, they played for a while, and the server went down. That was it. The creator tells it without drama, with the naturalness of someone who knows they're testing and that crashes are part of the process. The question left hanging is whether the project will survive more than one match in a row.

Some people, from the outside, distrust the invention. "What is this, a game you vibecoded with Claude?" one asks. The suspicion that the code was generated with AI assistance hangs over the table, and the creator doesn't deny it: "There's no malware, Claude would never do that to you." The defense is as honest as it is unconvincing.

The shadow of crypto mining and the comparison with the Mongolpoli

The distrust isn't just technical. Someone compares the invention to a "cheap copy of the mongolpoli" and another suspects the game hides a cryptocurrency mine. "You definitely want me mining crypto," says a player who refuses to join. The creator denies it, but the fruta of homemade AI projects precedes him.

The irony of the matter lies in the developer's own track record: he is credited with having made a fortune with bitcoins in the past. Hence the crypto mining joke has legs. The game, for now, is a Hotel board and a server that crashes. Nothing more. And nothing less, for someone who has spent years waiting to play with friends remotely.

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Online mode remains largely untested. Voice chat, pending. The server, down at least once. And the question of whether the project will survive next weekend remains unanswered. Nostalgia, for now, is ahead of the engineering.