Laravel Game Engine

Reusable Laravel backend package for online turn-based board games.

This package owns the generic server-side engine: rooms, players, lobby lifecycle, chat, persisted game state, command execution, event history, and realtime broadcast events. It does not contain rules for a specific board game. A host application provides the game definition, setup handler, policy, command handlers, and player-facing view factory.

Spanish documentation is available in README.es.md.

Repository Links

Official repositories:

• Laravel backend package: https://github.com/javleds/laravel-game-engine
• Vue frontend package: https://github.com/javleds/vue-game-engine

Package Pair

This package is the backend half of the engine. It is designed to be used with the Vue client package, @javleds/vue-turn-engine, but the HTTP and realtime contracts can also be consumed by another frontend.

@startuml
skinparam componentStyle rectangle

package "Host game app" {
  [Game Definition]
  [Game Rules]
  [Game Views]
  [Laravel Controllers]
}

package "javleds/laravel-game-engine" {
  [Rooms]
  [Players]
  [Chat]
  [Command Runner]
  [Realtime Events]
  [Engine Models]
}

package "@javleds/vue-turn-engine" {
  [Room Repositories]
  [Chat Repositories]
  [Session Store]
  [Realtime Composables]
}

[Laravel Controllers] --> [Rooms]
[Game Definition] --> [Command Runner]
[Game Rules] --> [Command Runner]
[Command Runner] --> [Realtime Events]
[@javleds/vue-turn-engine] --> [Laravel Controllers]
@enduml

Responsibilities

The engine package provides:

• Room creation, joining, leaving, reconnect, disconnect, and start flows.
• Player token authentication for room-scoped actions.
• Engine-owned Eloquent models for rooms, players, states, events, and chat messages.
• Generic chat services and realtime broadcast events.
• A command registry and command runner for game-specific actions.
• Contracts for game definitions, setup, policy checks, and state views.
• Package migrations and Laravel service provider auto-discovery.

The host game provides:

• Game rules and command handlers.
• Initial setup logic and deterministic state seed handling.
• Room policy limits such as player count and start requirements.
• Public/private game state view shaping.
• HTTP controllers or routes that expose the engine services.
• Frontend UI and game-specific action repositories.

Installation

For local development with a sibling checkout:

{
  "repositories": [
    {
      "type": "path",
      "url": "../laravel-game-engine",
      "options": {
        "symlink": true
      }
    }
  ],
  "require": {
    "javleds/laravel-game-engine": "dev-main"
  }
}

Then run:

composer update javleds/laravel-game-engine --with-dependencies
php artisan migrate

For Packagist usage, replace the path repository with the official package version once the repository is published.

Laravel Setup

The service provider is auto-discovered through Composer:

{
  "extra": {
    "laravel": {
      "providers": [
        "TurnEngine\Laravel\TurnEngineServiceProvider"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Publish config only if the host app wants a local config file:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=turn-engine-config

The host application must register at least one GameDefinition in TurnEngine\Laravel\GameRegistry.

use App\Games\MyGame\MyGameDefinition;
use TurnEngine\Laravel\GameRegistry;

$this->app->singleton(GameRegistry::class, function (): GameRegistry {
    return new GameRegistry([
        $this->app->make(MyGameDefinition::class),
    ]);
});

If more than one game is registered, configure the default game key:

return [
    'default_game' => 'my-game',
];

Core Contracts

A game adapter implements these contracts:

• GameDefinition: stable game key, ruleset version, policy, setup handler, command registry, and view factory.
• GamePolicy: room size and lifecycle checks.
• GameSetupHandler: initial state creation when a room starts.
• GameViewFactory: public/private state projection for API responses.
• CommandHandler: game-specific state transition for a command payload.

The dependency direction is always host game -> engine contracts. The engine does not depend on host game classes.

Backend / Frontend Contract

The Vue package expects the host app to expose compatible HTTP endpoints for room, chat, and game state flows. The current engine services are transport-agnostic enough to sit behind Laravel controllers, API resources, or another HTTP layer.

Realtime events use room channels and these event names:

• .room.state.changed
• .room.chat.message.created

The frontend package must be configured with the host realtime client, usually Laravel Echo.

Publishing Checklist

Before publishing this package publicly:

• Review the MIT license and update it if a different distribution model is required.
• Tag a semantic version, for example v0.1.0.
• Add CI for PHP syntax, static checks, and package install smoke tests.

Current Status

This package is extracted and usable as a local Composer path package. It is not tied to the Giants game domain.

Quality Checks

Run package metadata validation before publishing:

composer validate --strict