Zero-friction async multiplayer via shareable links, but Qwirkle mechanics aren't original.
Casual gamers, people wanting quick browser games with friends
Board Game Arena · Tabletopia · PlayingCards.io
I wanted it to be low friction, so there are no accounts. Your identity is an anonymous id in localStorage, and you can move it to another device by scanning a QR code or hitting a unique url. Start a game and text someone the link (game slugs are semi-memorable three word phrases), or "Play the computer" and you can play immediately against bots. Games are async-friendly with web push for turn notifications.
The stack is one Node process on a small VM, Next.js + Socket.IO, no database. The server and the client use the same engine so moves validate optimistically, and the bots go through the same functions, so bot moves are always legal. State is in memory and snapshots to a JSON file, so deploys don't kill games (I didn't have this initially, and was about one more deploy from having no more beta testers after the third game reset). No analytics/tracking/monetization now or planned - if it costs too much, I'll just shut down my server.
Disclosure: this was built almost entirely with Claude Code. I directed and reviewed; it wrote nearly all the code. Happy to talk about that workflow if folks are interested. Not really a proud coding project, but very fun for going from 0-playable in a day (plus two weeks of tweaks).
Known gaps: no turn timers for abandoned games yet, and push delivery is best-effort (Android battery optimization wins sometimes).
The author replaced brittle LLM scripts with OpenClaw-driven bots that actually compete in a live multiplayer game — not just follow canned heuristics. The demo looks playable and charming, but the project reads like a promising experiment: I'd want to see latency handling, how the bot hooks into the game loop, and quantitative match performance before calling this a breakthrough.
The author actually built a proper server-authoritative game using Rust + Tokio and Tungstenite, then added 4-player ELO quick queues, best-of-N lobbies and global leaderboards — not just a demo. The UI looks inviting, but the product hinges on live player density (no bots yet) and raises questions about latency handling, cheat prevention and scaling as the leaderboard grows.
Math-hard puzzle game auto-generates thousands of levels from group theory.
Voronoi diagrams shift per screen, forcing players to negotiate perspective.
Hides AI secret, live multiplayer prompts race to uncover it through social competition.
Combines server registry with player services so you stop stitching five vendors together.
