Pocket Rivals is an Gemini AI-powered icebreaker for two people who just met. You photograph something you carry, scribble a weapon, and record a battle cry. Google Gemini turns each into personalized battle cards—names, abilities, stats, and a question to ask your rival out loud. You duel with silly natural-language moves (and optional two-card combos), but the real goal is the conversation between rounds and a recap that gives you something to keep talking about after the game.

How it works

Three rounds: scan (photo + story), scribble (drawing), then a battle-cry showdown. Gemini forges gear and icebreaker prompts; it classifies moves, scores creativity and combo synergy, judges cries, and writes commentary and the end recap. Damage and winners come from a deterministic server combat engine—Gemini never arbitrarily decides who wins.

Gemini

We call the Gemini REST API with structured JSON (multimodal: images, WAV audio, text). Gemini narrates and classifies; the server agent adjudicates. API key via Google AI Studio;

Tech

Node.js, Express, Socket.IO, vanilla JS (camera, canvas, mic). Two phones join via QR on the same Wi-Fi; reconnect and phase sync on the server.

Why we built it

Hackathons are full of people who want to connect but stick to small talk. We wanted AI to personalize a shared game from their stuff and stories—the duel is the excuse; the icebreaker is the point.

Repo: https://github.com/darshrank/pocket-rivals

Tags: icebreaker, multiplayer, gemini, real-time, mobile-web, social, game, multimodal-ai