nowfound

Work · August 20, 2021

FO

FreeBoardGames.org – FOSS platform for publishing boardgame.io games

Hello HN, I have started FBG some years ago when I moved to the Bay Area and could not find a simple, cross-platform, no-registration way to play board games with my friends back in my home country. I also wanted to make it simple to create multiplayer board games online for developers in their free time. Shortly after, I found out about boardgame.io with similar goals and decided to join forces with them. It became the engine of our board games, and we focused on publishing/serving them. To be fair with everyone and inspired by Wikipedia, we made the project a non-profit with GPLv3…

FreeBoardGames.org – FOSS platform for publishing boardgame.io games launched on August 20, 2021 with 33 votes, #1,118 of 2,953 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.

In plain words

FreeBoardGames.org is a free, open-source platform for playing and publishing board games online without registration. Built on the boardgame.io engine, it lets players enjoy multiplayer games cross-platform with friends anywhere, and developers create new games in their spare time. The non-profit project, inspired by Wikipedia, operates under GPLv3 Affero license and is maintained by community contributors who handle game development, translations, and infrastructure.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

In the maker’s words, at launch

Hello HN, I have started FBG some years ago when I moved to the Bay Area and could not find a simple, cross-platform, no-registration way to play board games with my friends back in my home country. I also wanted to make it simple to create multiplayer board games online for developers in their free time. Shortly…

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