A Meteor.js app that lets you play scrabble online with your friends.
When users navigate to the Petra homepage, they're faced with a login form and list of game rooms. Once they've joined a room, they're presented with a waiting page until the game starts. This lobby functionality generalizes to all kinds of games, but after this, Petra is just scrabble. I'll make a Meteor package for this game room lobby system soon.
No one likes registering for new websites, so Petra has a very loose registration system. Users can just type a username to log in; passwords are optional.
Game rooms are either password protected or they're not. In order to join a password protected game room -- either via the main page or via a direct link -- users need to provide the correct password.
The user who created the game room is designated the room's owner, which gives them the power to start the game and delete the game room. If they leave the game room, another user is randomly chosen to be the room's owner.
Once the room owner starts the game, everyone receives 7 randomly chosen letters per Scrabble's letter distribution (minus the blank tiles). Players then place their tiles on a 15 by 15 grid to form words (from the SOWPODS dictionary).
Words need to lie along vertical or horizontal lines, and they need to branch off of words that are already on the board (or go through the center). The amount of points each word is worth depends on its constituent letters and any multiplier tiles it lies on. There are double-letter, double-word, triple-letter, and triple-word multiplier tiles.
If players can't think of any words, they can pass their turns with no penalty. But if everyone passes consecutively, the game ends and the player with the most points is declared the winner. The only other way the game can end is if there are no more tiles to distribute to players and someone uses up all of their letters.