Smoke or Fire, Vient

What is it?

Smoke or Fire is the classic party card game, built for phones and the web. Guess whether the next card is red or black, higher or lower, inside or outside. Four rounds, then a pyramid where everyone’s cards come back to haunt them.

Pass-and-play on a single device, or multiplayer with room codes across separate phones.

Features

Four-round card guessing game with increasing difficulty
Pyramid endgame where matched cards assign drinks to other players
Real-time multiplayer via 4-letter room codes
Pass-and-play mode for single-device sessions
3D card flip animations on every reveal
Customizable drink amounts per round and pyramid row

Why it’s on the web and not the App Store

Submitted to Apple multiple times. Rejected each time under Guideline 1.4.3 (apps that encourage alcohol consumption). Tried every angle: reframing the metadata, removing all alcohol references, positioning drinks as optional scoring. Didn’t matter. The game mechanic is the game mechanic.

It runs in any browser. No install required.

Tech

React Native + Expo + TypeScript. Firebase Realtime Database for multiplayer sync. react-native-reanimated for the card flip animation. Read the full build log for the whole story, including the multiplayer architecture and the App Store saga. Source on GitHub.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Smoke or Fire free to play?

Yes. It's completely free and runs in any browser with no download or account. Just open the link and start a game.

Can I play with friends on separate phones?

Yes. One player creates a room and shares the 4-letter code; everyone else joins from their own phone and the game syncs in real time. If you're all together, pass-and-play mode runs the whole game on a single device.

Why isn't it on the App Store?

It was submitted to Apple multiple times and rejected each time under Guideline 1.4.3, which covers apps that encourage alcohol consumption. Reframing the metadata and making drinks optional didn't change the outcome, so it lives on the web instead, where it runs on any device with no install.

How do you play Smoke or Fire?

Over four rounds you guess properties of the next card: red or black, higher or lower than your last card, inside or outside your two cards, and the suit. Wrong guesses assign drinks. Then a pyramid stage flips cards back over and players who hold matches give out drinks based on the row value.

What is it built with?

React Native, Expo, and TypeScript, with Firebase Realtime Database handling multiplayer sync and react-native-reanimated driving the 3D card-flip animation. The source is on GitHub.

Smoke or Fire