Shenanigans
Shenanigans is a mixed-reality party game for Meta Quest 3. Up to five of you put on headsets in the same room, and a 1970s variety show that has been taken over by a podcast sets up between the sofa and the television.
You can still see each other. That is the point, and occasionally the problem.
Meta Quest 32 to 5 playersSame roomMixed realityFor adults
Now in private alpha. We are not taking sign-ups yet. This page will say so when that changes.
Three games, one scoreboard that follows you all evening and remembers everything.
1
Speed charades with an object only you can see
A prop appears in your hand. You know what it is. Everyone else sees a shapeless blob. You have sixty seconds, any noises you like, and no words. They shout guesses until somebody gets it, then the blob is revealed and the next one arrives.
Some props are worth double. Those are the ones you will regret.
2
Elimination rhythm
Everyone gets a drum. A beat goes around the circle and you hit yours on your turn. Then the hosts start calling Reverse, Skip and Double, and the tempo climbs.
Miss your beat and you are out. Your drum becomes a whoopee cushion, which you are free to keep playing. Last drummer standing wins.
3
Grown-up general knowledge, graded sarcastically
Four answers float in the room; grab one before the clock runs out. Fast and right beats slow and right.
It ends with a lightning round and one big buzzer on the table. Slap it first, answer out loud, and the room votes on whether you were right. Being wrong costs points and earns a pie in the face.
The showman
Rex believes this is a prestige network broadcast and that it is still 1974. He is smooth, vain and mellow to a degree that has been remarked upon. He reads every question as if it were about him.
The stagehand
Patch runs the board, the buzzer and the pranks. Deadpan, competent, and quietly on your side, which will not stop the pie.
The hosts in the pictures are stand-ins. The real ones are still in make-up.
Two to five people, each with a Meta Quest 3, in the same room. Push the coffee table back. You will want the floor.
Open shenanigans.host in the television's browser and press OK. It shows a QR code for the room and a guest list that fills up as people join.
Put the headset on, open Shenanigans and point it at the code on the TV. That is the whole joining procedure.
The set appears in your room. Rex takes it from there. Scores carry from game to game until someone goes home.
Where this stands today: the game runs on headsets in the same room. The TV page is live as a lobby; scanning its code from inside the headset, a TV broadcast view, phones as controllers and playing with friends elsewhere are planned, in that order, and none of them are in the alpha yet.
Shenanigans is made and published by ThingamaSoft, a very small independent studio. Small enough that the person who wrote this page also argued with the drum physics.