July 5, 2026
8 years, zero quit, maximum chaos
Show HN: Homegames. An open-source game platform I've been making for 8 years
After 8 years of solo work, this browser game world has players cheering, questioning, and getting wrecked by lasers
TLDR: Homegames is a free site where people can make and play browser games, built mostly by one person over eight years and released so others can copy or host it themselves. Commenters were split between pure hype, old-school nostalgia, and one pointed debate over whether the platform is too focused on live sessions.
A lone creator spent eight years building Homegames, a free, open-source website where people can play, make, and share games right in their browser—and the comment section instantly turned into the real main event. The pitch is charmingly scrappy: no account needed just to play, tools to make your own games, and even the option to keep them private or host them yourself so they survive if the main site ever disappears. That last bit gave the whole thing an underdog, "save the little internet" energy that people clearly loved.
But the crowd didn’t just clap politely. One player dropped in with the kind of review money can’t buy: they got "closelined by a beam" in one of the games and called it "Badass." That’s the sort of chaotic praise that tells you the platform is doing something right. Others got instantly nostalgic, with one commenter summoning the ghost of old-school game-making tools from the Amiga era, basically saying: wait, are we reliving the golden age of weird DIY game creation?
Still, a little drama snuck in. One commenter hit the brakes with a classic skeptical question: does everything really need a session? In plain English, they were asking whether games have to be tied to live online play, or whether people can make simpler standalone games too. So the mood was a delicious mix of hype, curiosity, and light side-eye. The sweetest reaction, though, came from a reader who said the project’s sheer persistence was inspiring—proof that sometimes the biggest flex on the internet is simply not giving up.
Key Points
- •Homegames is a browser-based platform for playing, creating, and sharing games, and no account is required to play.
- •The platform includes a browser-based code editor and live game preview with live multiplayer sessions for testing changes.
- •Users can manage assets in the studio by uploading files or creating content through drawing or recording tools.
- •Games can be published publicly or kept private depending on the creator's preference.
- •The platform, games, and website are licensed under GPLv3, and the system is designed to be self-hostable, including its API.