Overview
A beautiful, animated implementation of the classic strategy board game Quoridor, built with Next.js and real-time multiplayer capabilities.
• Local Pass & Play - Two-player mode on a single device • Online Multiplayer - Real-time matches with friends via shareable room codes • Real-Time Synchronization - Serverless-friendly approach using HTTP + SSE (Server-Sent Events) with Redis as single source of truth
Why I Built It?
The goal was to understand how real-time systems work under the hood without requiring user sign-ups. I explored how to synchronize game state instantly between two players, researching various real-time communication patterns: Short Polling, Long Polling, WebSockets / Socket.io, and Server-Sent Events (SSE).
Implementation Details: For this project, I implemented a Serverless-friendly approach using HTTP + SSE (Server-Sent Events). • Redis acts as the single source of truth for game state • SSE pushes updates instantly to clients without them needing to refresh or poll • The system is completely stateless and frictionless—users can jump in via a link and play immediately