Show HN: I made a competitive debating game(like chess.com but for debating)

10 fantajuice 11 8/4/2025, 9:07:50 PM crs-prod-rankeddebate-l4dnggfaca-nn.a.run.app ↗
Got tired of my debates with my friend's ending in "I'm right bc I said so" so I made a platform where you can debate with your friend's(or a bot, recently added feature) about whatever you want, and after the debate is done a LLM judges who's more sound in logic. Gain points and climb the leaderboard!

Feedback and criticism would be appreciated(there's a discord in there if you wanna talk more in depth)

p.s.: I decided to use google acc sign in since it makes the whole thing easier to manage(live chatroom feature, etc.). I don't actually do anything with your emails

Comments (11)

mike741 · 20m ago
Doesn't seem like completing debates with AI gets recorded anywhere and people are unlikely to recruit a friend just to test if it works. Additionally, a toggle option for public/private debates would make users less hesitant to create a new one. It's not immediately clear what the visibility of the debate will actually be.
splatzone · 1h ago
Is there a way to see some past debates? Would give me a flavour of how the site works without having to sign up and wait for someone to come online. Well done on releasing.
fantajuice · 1h ago
kind of, you can see live debates that people are having(though none happened). But the server reloads whenever no one's online for a bit and it wipes the sqlite file clean(cheap servers right now) which also wipes away all the old debates
fantajuice · 2h ago
Since there's prolly no active users on it rn, to test it u could try the bot mode or ask a friend to debate with you :)
fantajuice · 2h ago
why is there 10 of u who made an acc and none are debating what are u guys even doing on there is the ui not intuitive?
molyss · 2h ago
The idea seems very cool.

I didn't create an account because it's asking for my email address when using my google account. Don't want more spam.

Also, some decisions seem more politically charged than necessary, like using "Donal Trump" as an example of an "Easy" debate opponent.

Finally, I don't know the SMS-style abbreviations are much appreciated on HN (u for you is the most annoying example in your introduction). I'm not sure why it's bothering me enough to tell you about it...

fantajuice · 2h ago
I just chose the bot opponents randomly haha and I'll keep the formalism on HN in mind.
CamperBob2 · 2h ago
Me: "Sites should not require account creation at a late stage of initial engagement. Account requirements should be disclosed up front to avoid wasting peoples' time."

Plato: "Yep, can't argue with that."

Einstein: "Indubitably."

Trump: "Covfefe"

fantajuice · 2h ago
Tump: China

so your only issue with it it's that it's asking for email? What do you mean by late stage initial engagement?

mvid · 1h ago
A more honest approach would be to require a signup before an action takes place. Letting a user do some things, get invested, and then drop a signup requirement on them is a dark pattern
fantajuice · 28m ago
I can't tell if I'm the first one or the latter. Am I not making them sign up before anything happens(can't do anything without an account besides look at other people debate)? Or is that a bad thing?