Boardium 🎲

Boardium is a centralised hub for classic board games (e.g. Chess, Checkers, Ludo), supporting:

• 🌐 Online multiplayer
• 🤖 Bot opponents with multiple difficulty levels
• 🏗️ A shared backend architecture to avoid duplicated game logic

This repository is under active development and follows a structured team workflow.

---

📁 Project Structure

Boardium/
├── backend/        # Node.js + Express API
│   ├── src/
│   │   └── index.js
│   └── package.json
│
├── frontend/       # React (Vite) frontend
│   ├── src/
│   │   └── App.jsx
│   └── package.json
│
├── docs/           # Diagrams, proposal material, notes
├── .gitignore
└── README.md

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✅ Current Status

Implemented

• React frontend scaffolded with Vite
• Express backend server running on port 3001
• CORS configured
• Frontend successfully connects to backend via /health endpoint
• Clean Git workflow using main + dev branches

Not Yet Implemented

• Authentication
• Game logic (Chess, Checkers, Ludo)
• Database schema (SQLite)
• Matchmaking or polling

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🚀 Getting Started (For Team Members)

1. Clone the repository (SSH required)

git clone git@github.com:<ORG-OR-USERNAME>/Boardium.git
cd Boardium

Make sure you have added your SSH key to GitHub before cloning.

2. Switch to the development branch

git checkout dev

All active development happens on dev, not main.

3. Install dependencies

Backend:

cd backend
npm install

Frontend:

cd ../frontend
npm install

4. Run the application (two terminals)

Terminal 1 – Backend:

cd backend
npm run dev

Expected output:

Server running on port 3001

Terminal 2 – Frontend:

cd frontend
npm run dev

Open the URL shown (usually http://localhost:5173). You should see:

Boardium
Backend status: ok

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🔁 Development Workflow

⚠️ Do NOT commit directly to main or dev.

Branch Rules

Branch	Purpose
main	Stable, release-ready code only
dev	Integration branch
feature/*	All new work

Starting Work

git checkout dev
git pull origin dev
git checkout -b feature/<short-description>

Branch name examples:

• feature/chess-engine
• feature/matchmaking
• feature/sqlite-schema

Committing & Pushing

git add .
git commit -m "feat: short meaningful message"
git push origin feature/<short-description>

Then open a Pull Request into dev.

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🧹 Git Hygiene

• node_modules/ is ignored via .gitignore
• Each developer runs npm install locally
• No secrets or database files should ever be committed

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	React + Vite
Backend	Node.js + Express
Database (planned)	SQLite
Version Control	Git + GitHub
Dev Workflow	Feature branches + Pull Requests

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📌 Next Planned Steps

• Define SQLite schema (users, matches, moves)
• Add core API routes: /create-match, /move, /state
• Implement shared game engine interface
• Add polling for online matches
• Implement bots with adjustable difficulty

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👥 Team Notes

If something doesn't run:

1. Check you're on the dev branch
2. Run npm install in both backend/ and frontend/
3. Make sure both servers are running simultaneously

If still stuck, ask in the group chat before force-pushing or rebasing.