--- title: "Discussion on \"Making Connect the Stars\" | Hashnode" description: "Discussion on \"Making Connect the Stars\". In October 2020, Amanda and I released Connect the Stars. This is the story of how it came together!\nInspiration\nLike any good passion project, the inspiration for Connect the Stars is a unique mix of personal experiences. The first inspiration is a ..." url: "https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a" --- [Feed](https://hashnode.com/feed) / Discussion # [Making Connect the Stars](https://ericbai.co/making-connect-the-stars?utm_source=hashnode&utm_medium=feed) In October 2020, Amanda and I released Connect the Stars. This is the story of how it came together! Inspiration Like any good passion project, the inspiration for Connect the Stars is a unique mix of personal experiences. The first inspiration is a ... Nov 21, 2021 · 11 min read · ericbai.co Updated May 8, 2024 Read the article - [#projects](https://hashnode.com/tag/projects) ## Written by [Eric Bai](https://hashnode.com/@ericbai) @ericbai [View profile](https://hashnode.com/@ericbai) Technology and art ## Responses 5 Markdown supported · ⌘↵ to post [Will Ryan](https://hashnode.com/@Jraff) [Dec 13, 2025](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/693d6b5adf69901bdeb054dd) I absolutely love this website, it's just amazing But it would be really cool if there was a toggle to allow TV series (although I imagine that would be extremely difficult to do) Maybe even some other toggles, as TMDB does have genre IDs you could probably make a way to filter in and out out certain things like documentaries or reality stuff for example, similar to the website The Oracle of Bacon [Fernando Brito](https://hashnode.com/@fernand029) [Oct 13, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/670bc146609d18df5ab5841c) Im making an application thats was inspired by your game. It's an app that you type 2 different actors and it returns the shortest path between these 2 actors (kinda a hack to your game lol). Im having an issue. Im not being able to discard the documentaries when the api searches, how did you do it? [Eric Bai](https://hashnode.com/@ericbai) [Oct 15, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/670bc146609d18df5ab5841c#reply-670de791465e795ecaf2211c) Hi Fernando, that project sounds awesome! Telling you the shortest path is a feature request for Connect the Stars but I never got a chance to prioritize it. For discarding documentaries, you can check a film's genres, and discard any documentaries (on TMDB, this is genre id 99). I filter these out after getting API results, I don't think there's a way to specify within the API query. [DefterHornet](https://hashnode.com/@DefterHornet) [Oct 10, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/670827b32542b5f1069513e9) Hey! a streamer i watch (mooseref on twitch) played your game and he unfortunately didn't like it, so i decided to play it myself and it was great! However i see his point as many movies simply were not there or did not show that actors were in specific movies that they were in fact in. Now, I have never dabbled in coding but is there a way to instead use the IMDB database which is more accurate? [Eric Bai](https://hashnode.com/@ericbai) [Oct 11, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/670827b32542b5f1069513e9#reply-670992729d86dc055d079978) Hey there! I really appreciate the comment, always love to get insight into how people are playing the game. I watched mooseref's stream and his first game definitely had some bug happen: the app correctly added Speed to the board, but somehow failed to connect Speed to Keanu Reeves. And Point Break should have been added too. That said, I tried to reproduce this bug and could not, making the same game, I could add both movies to the board correctly :S I won't be able to fix the bug until I can reproduce it. For the second game, when he tried to add Ponyo for Liam Neeson - the database I use doesn't have any dubbed roles. I suppose this can be pretty annoying, but it's also reasonable to base the game on the original performances in the movie. I'll give this one further thought. If you have other examples of mistakes in the game, I'm happy to try to reproduce them! Thanks. [DefterHornet](https://hashnode.com/@DefterHornet) [Oct 18, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/670827b32542b5f1069513e9#reply-6711ca81d57ddd38e98e27d2) Interesting, ok good to know! [Eric Bai](https://hashnode.com/@ericbai) [Darrian](https://hashnode.com/@darrian) [Mar 31, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/6609dd7e3496396abe92b2ed) My friends and I love Connect the Stars! We race to see who can connect two actors first. You did an amazing job on the UI and animations! [Eric Bai](https://hashnode.com/@ericbai) [Apr 1, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/6609dd7e3496396abe92b2ed#reply-660a124ead68bdf47899850a) Thank you so much for the kind words! Amanda did an amazing job with the UI, I’ll pass along this comment to her! [pepe](https://hashnode.com/@pepezada) [Jan 2, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/65939a0e9bca0ac4f7d9492c) Did you create the layout yourself or did you use any of the extensions from the documentation? I was researching about this library, and it seems interesting. It looks like you even have a system to avoid collisions, is that correct? [pepe](https://hashnode.com/@pepezada) [Jan 2, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/65939a0e9bca0ac4f7d9492c#reply-659496103cec7405d53055d8) I was truly inspired and created a Proof of Concept (POC) based on your project, but I chose to focus on musicians. To achieve this, I integrated the Spotify API and the library mentioned in your article. Although I didn't manage to replicate the desired layout configuration precisely, I did succeed in making the basic functionality work. You can check out the result at connecttheartists.netlify.app/ [Eric Bai](https://hashnode.com/@ericbai) [Eric Bai](https://hashnode.com/@ericbai) [Jan 3, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/65939a0e9bca0ac4f7d9492c#reply-6594b0cee08a9c269154b84f) [pepe](https://hashnode.com/@pepezada) wow this is awesome! Thanks for sharing, it's so cool to see how Connect the Stars inspired you! I played around with it and connected Drake to Pharrell Williams :) [DefterHornet](https://hashnode.com/@DefterHornet) [Oct 10, 2024](https://hashnode.com/posts/making-connect-the-stars/61d641436be3e31286ae6f9a/comment/65939a0e9bca0ac4f7d9492c#reply-67082bf212c789e8f344c051) [pepe](https://hashnode.com/@pepezada) i tried the game and i cant seem to understand how it works, can you explain it? like i thought it would be to connect artists through tracks they both worked on together but Billie Eilish did not connect to guess by Charlie XCX feat. Billie Eilish