I wanted to make a game similar to the jackbox.tv party games, in that players use their phones to connect to the main game. However, I just have absolutely no idea where to start... I've watched videos and read some articles, but I can't seem to find one that explains what I'm trying to do. Each player would be getting the same ui/layout on their phone, but with different types of information. Meanwhile, the TV or PC would act as the lobby and server that the players would need to connect to (through a LAN?). Is that even possible? Can phone apps connect to PC games?  The TV would just be displaying some visuals of the player icons and play some animations. I've heard of airconsole, but I don't feel like it would accomplish what I wanted. Or would it?

I'm just really confused . If someone could help me answer even one of my questions I would really appreciate. I'd even be happy if someone pointed me towards a guide or tutorial that I can look into that would help me learn how to do this on my own. Thank you for the help!

If it's a local network game, the PC/TV would be basically a server with displays. It can be implemented exactly like a game server (with server socket and stuffs), but this server is also a game (implemented in engine like unity3d or using DirectX or whatever. )

If it's internet game, maybe using a dedicate server that treat PC/TV as a specialized kind of client would be easier to work with ?

If you want a Jackbox style approach, you just need a remote server that the players and game are both connecting to. Note that Jackbox sends you to their site and asks for a code. This has the advantage of being able to play over that king videos that I hear is popular with kids these days.

People can and will break the LAN controls. No two networks are exactly the same. If you have to ask, you may want to put it aside until you have the other thing working.

The simplest way that I would approach this would be with existing web tech. The "game server" PC is actually a HTTP server, and the UI on the phone is actually just a web-page served by that PC. If the PC also only needs a simple UI on the TV, then it too can just be the same type of web-page too.

Download a wamp/lamp stack and you're all set up ready to go.

I'm pretty sure jackbox does this same thing, except they host the web pages in the cloud instead of via a local HTTP server.

I doubt it's a local game. It's more likely that each phone connects to a game server, and the TV/browser also connects to taht game server, and they just act as slightly different clients for the same game instance.

To push updates to the clients, if you use web browsers, you can use websockets these days; all browsers support that, and server support is pretty simple for most languages. It depends on which particular language and framework you're using, so google for the appropriate combination.