NPTA — Name, Place, Thing, Animal, Profession

A real-time multiplayer word game built with React, Node.js, Socket.IO, and PostgreSQL.

🎮 Overview

NPTA is a multiplayer word game where players join a room, receive a randomly generated letter, and race to fill in words for five categories (Name, Place, Thing, Animal, Profession) before the timer runs out. All game logic is server-authoritative.

🛠 Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	React 19, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS v4, Framer Motion
Backend	Node.js, Express 5, TypeScript, Socket.IO
Database	PostgreSQL, Prisma ORM
Auth	Guest sessions with UUID tokens

📁 Project Structure

NPTAL/
├── packages/shared/     # Shared types, constants, utilities
├── apps/
│   ├── client/          # React frontend (Vite)
│   └── server/          # Node.js backend (Express + Socket.IO)
├── docker-compose.yml   # Local development
└── .github/workflows/   # CI/CD

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• PostgreSQL (or use Docker)

Option 1: Local Development

# Clone and install
git clone <repo-url>
cd NPTAL
npm install

# Setup database (automatic SQLite local dev)
npm run db:push
npm run db:seed

# Start development (runs client & server together, or run individually)
npm run dev

# Or run individually in separate terminals:
npm run dev:server   # Backend → http://localhost:3001
npm run dev:client   # Frontend → http://localhost:5173

Option 2: Docker

docker-compose up
# Client: http://localhost:5173
# Server: http://localhost:3001

🎯 Game Rules

1. Players join a room via room code
2. Host starts the game
3. Each round: a random letter is revealed
4. Players fill in words starting with that letter for 5 categories
5. Scoring: Unique answer = 10 pts, Duplicate = 5 pts, Invalid = 0 pts
6. Winner is the player with the highest total score after all rounds

🏗 Architecture

• Server-Authoritative: All scoring, validation, and game logic runs on the server
• Real-time: Socket.IO for instant game state synchronization
• Clean Architecture: Controllers → Services → Engine → Database
• Type-Safe: Shared TypeScript types between client and server

📦 Deployment

Service	Platform
Frontend	Vercel
Backend	Render
Database	Neon PostgreSQL

📄 License

MIT