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Backstory

Deniz Binay

A variation of this text will be published at launch.

The Story Behind Songenius: Expanding Song Guessing Games Together

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A few months ago, a friend introduced me to the game Hitster. As soon as I heard it was a music game, I was excited. Music has been a huge part of my life since my teenage years, so a game that combines music with a bit of guessing sounded perfect for me.

And the night was great. We had a blast—and we've played it several times since. But there was one unexpected catch. A lot of the songs were totally unfamiliar to me. Sure, I knew a few hits like "The Final Countdown," but even then, I blanked on who performed it (it's by a band called Europe, by the way—and yes, I had to Google it again right now!). It's still fun even if you don't know the songs, and I totally get why they chose mostly mainstream hits. But in any quiz game, the best moments are when you at least think you know the answer—not when you’re just guessing wildly without a clue.

Some of my friends, who still listen to a lot of classic radio, recognized many of the songs instantly, making their experience more rewarding. But for me, not recognizing any song meant I missed out on those satisfying moments, which was a bit of a letdown.

The Quest for Genre-Based Options

So, when I got home, I started searching for a "Hitster hip-hop edition" Nothing came up. Not hip-hop, not punk, not techno, not dubstep—just more pop hits and mainstream music. But I did find a lot of other interesting stuff.

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Tons of discussions about ways to expand existing music games. Some people explained how to make your own cards at home using simple Spotify QR codes—it’s actually pretty straightforward. There are even services(

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) that will generate QR song-guessing cards for you; you just provide a Spotify playlist link, and they’ll give you a PDF with basic black-and-white sheets to print at home. But it’s surprisingly pricey for a PDF that’s generated instantly. Plus, if you use a Playlist that’s not specifically designed for a timeline-based format, it doesn’t play well, as the release years are all over the place.

There are also a few open-source projects(

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) that give you most of the tools you’d need: a website to scan cards, templates to make your own, and more. But they all come with the same downside as all user generated decks—who wants to play a deck I’ve created myself? It’s hard to surprise myself with songs I already know inside out, and everyone else would be stuck playing by my taste. Not exactly fair, right?

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I also found other games that had a similar approach but with different features.

Marimic⁠

, for example, lets you play in a shared timeline and offers digital cards with thousands of songs. They’re planning genre-based playlists down the line, but they’re not there yet. Then there’s

Songfest!⁠

, which mixes things up with various question types and includes over 700 songs. I haven’t tried it myself since it’s on the pricier side, but from what I’ve seen, the song selection leans heavily toward chart-toppers and mainstream hits across all genres, similar to Hitster. And finally, there’s

Jora Games⁠

from the Netherlands, which offers a well-designed hardstyle edition that’s popular on Reddit. Hardstyle isn’t a big thing in my friend group, though, and the other editions they offer don’t feel as focused as I’d prefer.

Can We Make It Ourselves?

The more I looked, the more I realized I wasn’t alone—there were others like me who wanted more variety and depth. At this point, I called Jannis, my co-founder at our agency. We’re both big kids at heart, always excited about new projects—especially when they involve music and games. Beyond that, we both have a deep connection to nightlife and music culture. We trained at

subculture magazine⁠

, working on countless projects with music, event, and lifestyle brands, as well as with artists and creators.

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I also spent over 12 years as an independent event manager, organizing everything from parties and festivals to concerts and cultural events in my hometown. From booking major names for large events to co-founding a small club, that world was a huge part of my life. In fact, that’s where I met Jannis. He began his journey as a sticker artist and DIY flyer designer. After I finished my training and as he was beginning his, we connected through former colleagues and started collaborating on indie events and festivals. Working together quickly turned into a friendship, built on a shared love for music and DIY spirit. In 2019, we took the leap and co-founded Bombig.net, a design and marketing agency that we’ve successfully run ever since. With our combined backgrounds and experience, we felt confident we could handle the design, marketing, and production side of things—but there was still one problem.

How to Create Decks with Exceptional Depth for Every Genre?

Music is an endless multiverse, and each genre has its own vibe, history, and defining artists. Each edition needs to hit the sweet spot: it should include meaningful, iconic songs from the genre, but it can’t be so niche that only hardcore fans would recognize them. And since timeline-based games are the most popular format for QR-based song guessing, it’s important to spread songs evenly across the genre’s timeline. Details like these need careful consideration before releasing a deck. That’s how we quickly arrived at our final idea.

Songenius: Community-Driven Genre Expansion Packs for Popular Song Guessing Games

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Our vision for Songenius isn’t just about offering genre-based expansion packs. We want it to be a community where music fans, players, and genre nerds come together to create decks that they’ll genuinely enjoy playing. After all, no one knows what makes a genre tick better than the people who are passionate about it.

So, we’ve spent the last few weeks creating the platform you see today. If you’re someone who wants to see more genre diversity in song-guessing card games, we’d love for you to join us.

How You Can Get Involved

We know not everyone has time to dive deep into song curation, so we’ve set up several ways to participate:

Vote on Genres: On

Songenius.com⁠

, you can vote on which genre editions we should work on next. You don’t even need an account—just click on the genres you want to play, and we’ll use this feedback to guide our next steps.

Suggest Songs/Genres: If you’re up for contributing,

join our Discord⁠

server, where you’ll find public playlists for each genre. You can add your favorite tracks to these playlists, which will serve as the foundation for later discussions.

Join the Discussion: Or, if you’d like, dive into discussions about each edition and the game in general. We plan to work closely with community votes, even when it’s not about a specific edition.

Stay Updated: If you’d rather just follow along, you can help by signing up for updates. Just by joining our email list, you let us gauge the level of interest and understand if this is something people really want.

No Community, No Songenius

All of this is still an experiment, and we’re relying on your feedback to help us to see if this project is worth pursuing. Every new mailing list subscriber, every person who joins Discord, every song added to a playlist, and every message in the community lets us know we’re on the right track.

So, whether you’re here to play, suggest, or just stay tuned—thank you for being part of this journey. We’re excited to see what Songenius can become with all of you by our side.

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