New dating app let’s you play ‘Spin the Bottle’

Remember the excitement you had right before your first kiss? A new dating app wants to bring that feeling back by using a classic party game — spin the bottle — to get adult singles to meet in the online world.

The app, which launched Wednesday, is actually less retro than it sounds. Using video chatting, users go on 30-second speed dates to determine who is right for them.

“With so many ‘swipe left, swipe right’ dating apps out there right now, we wanted a way to take people beyond the often misleading, perfectly manicured profile pictures and get them right to face time,” said Matthew Cohen, CEO and co-founder of Spin Labs. “Looking into someone’s eyes and having a conversation, even a 30 second one, can be much more revealing than reading a list of interests and seeing a gallery of heavily edited, perfectly filtered selfies.”

The app, however, is based on the old-school game, where participants spin the bottle to see who they will kiss. This time players “spin the bottle”, and when it stop they will enter into a 30-second video date with a potential match.

“If they’re feeling the love, they can give their date a kiss and see if they return the affection. Two kisses and it’s a match,” according to the app’s description.

Players can then send messages, view profiles and do more video chatting via the app.

“Spin the Bottle has always been a game of chance, so we want users to feel that excitement as the bottle spins and they enter into these face-to-face video dates,” Cohen said.

Spin the Bottle is currently in private beta and set to be released on the Apple App Store in the coming weeks. To be among the first to play, users may request beta invites here.