Gameplay
Real-time multiplayer with configurable boards and win conditions
Online multiplayer gameplay
What We Built — game two, now with humans
Why Multiplayer?
After Cosmic Drift, I had a game where you play against AI. Fun, but lonely. The obvious next step: what if you could play against actual people? Connect 4 felt perfect — turn-based, simple rules, but enough strategy to make it interesting.
The twist: why limit it to 4? Make the board size configurable. Make the win condition configurable. Suddenly "Connect 4" becomes "Connect N on an MxK board" and the strategic depth explodes.
The progression: Game one taught me Canvas and game loops. Game two taught me WebSockets and real-time sync
Real-Time Everything
Socket.io handles the connection layer — room creation, player matching, move broadcasting. But the interesting part is what happens on the server: every move gets validated before anyone sees it.
Client sends "drop piece in column 3". Server checks: Is it your turn? Is that column valid? Is the game still active? Only then does it broadcast the new state to both players. No cheating by modifying client state.
Lesson learned: Never trust the client. The server is the single source of truth for game state
Tech Stack
Same Canvas rendering from Cosmic Drift, but now with a Node.js backend. Rooms live in memory — no database needed. Players connect, play, disconnect, and the room cleans itself up.