GameHub.io is an attempt to make a real-time multi player gaming server using the following technologies:

• HTML5, CSS3, Twitter bootstrap and Font awesome to make a nice looking UI
• JQuery combined with the inevitable Javascript utilities (Lodash, Moment.js, Messenger.js and Highcharts) for client side logic
• Socket.io client to make real time gaming possible

• Node JS as web server
• Express JS as web framework
• Passport JS as authentication middleware
• Socket.io server to make real time gaming possible
• Handlebars.js to easily render HTML templates
• Mongo DB along with Mongoose
• ElasticSearch server for (near) real time game indexing and lookup

The main goal of GameHub.io is to provide a non trivial web application serving as an example of gaming server using the aforementioned technologies.

Here is a list of core features:

• Application structure and setup
• User authentication and registration process (/login & /register)
• Real time multi player gaming logic (See gaming logic section)
• RESTful API (/api)
• Real time monitoring dashboard (/monitor)
• "TV" page to broadcast any real time content (/tv)
• Real time game indexing and searching using ElasticSearch (/search)

GameHub.io uses a simple gaming sequence through Socket.io that works for 2+ players. Here is a simplified diagram of most relevant events:

1. Each player can create a game by sending a 'create-game' event to the server
2. The server creates a new game and replies to the player with a randomly generated token for the game
3. The player sends this token to other players and waits for them to join the game
4. Others players join the game by sending a 'join-game' event to the server
5. Once all players joined the game, the server joins players sockets to the same socket.io room
6. At this point, the game starts: depending on the game nature, each player can send a random number of events that will be broadcast to other players.
7. When the game is over, each player is notified and sockets leave the game room

ChessHub.io is a real time multi player chess server that serves as a sample of how to reuse GameHub.io core features.

The goal of ChessHub.io is not to provide a fully featured web application to play chess online.

Even though the application is related to chess, it is easy to change the domain model along with application logic and keep/adapt the application structure.

• Because it is a good use case for real time multi player gaming
• Because every time you look for a real time application example on the web, you end up on chat applications, so I decided to change the landscape :-)
• Because I am a chess junkie!

Chess logic on the client side uses the excellent Chess.js and Chessboard.js libraries.

http://chesshub-benas.rhcloud.com/

• Node JS
• Mongo DB up and running on the default port (27017) and using the default database (test)
• ElasticSearch server up and running on the default port (9200)

$> npm install
$> node initData.js
$> node .

Browse the following address: http://localhost:3000

You can register a new account or sign in with the following credentials: [email protected] / foobar

Note: The initData.js script will populate Mongo DB and ElasticSearch with some data so you can use the application.

There are probably some points of improvement in the application design, structure or code.

If you believe there is a best practice I have not followed, please let me know by opening an issue on the issue tracker. Pull requests are welcome!

GameHub.io is released under the MIT license (see LICENSE file).