Solmaalai (சொல்மாலை)

A multiplayer Tamil Scrabble game built with React and WebSockets.

Features

• Real-time two-player multiplayer via WebSocket rooms
• Private game rooms (create + invite by link/code)
• Random opponent matchmaking queue
• Single-player mode with AI opponent
• Persistent usernames
• Persistent leaderboard/rating system (SQLite-backed; shown when data exists)
• Password-protected admin analytics inspector (?analytics=1)
• Tamil/English bilingual UI
• Large Tamil dictionary (public/tamil_dictionary.txt) with server-side FST validation fallback
• Dictionary preloaded at app startup; Play button stays disabled until dictionary is ready
• HTTP fallback FST validation for single-player (POST /api/validate-words)
• Drag-and-drop tile placement
• In-game chat
• Invite friends with a shareable link

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• foma + flookup when rebuilding FST models or dictionary artifacts. Install with brew install foma on macOS or sudo apt-get install foma-bin on Ubuntu/Debian. Compiled .fst files still require the external flookup executable for runtime morphology validation.

Running Locally

Start the WebSocket server:

npm install
npm run fst:build   # verifies the checksum-pinned 12-model morphology release
cd server && npm install && npm start

Start the React app (in a separate terminal):

npm install
npm start

Open http://localhost:3000.

FST and Dictionary Workflow

• Canonical FST architecture doc: Docs/FST_ARCHITECTURE.md
• FST patch/build/test workflow: fst/README.md
• One-command refresh (patched FSTs + dictionary + checks): npm run dict:build
• Full docs index: Docs/README.md

Landing page modes:

• New Game With Invited Opponent (creates a private room and auto-opens invite modal)
• Play Random Opponent (queue-based matchmaking)
• Play vs Computer
• Join Private Game (accepts either game code or full invite link)

Invite modal supports sharing:

• game code
• full invite link
• native Web Share API (when available)

Healthcheck

The server exposes:

• GET /health → returns 200 JSON ({ ok: true, service, timestamp })

For Railway deployments, set the service Healthcheck Path to /health to reduce deploy-time 500s during rollouts.

Admin Analytics

1. Set ANALYTICS_ADMIN_PASSWORD in server environment variables.
2. Open the app with ?analytics=1 (example: http://localhost:3000/?analytics=1).
3. Enter the admin password in the inspector UI.

Protected endpoints are served under /api/admin/* and require X-Admin-Password.

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React, Redux Toolkit
• Backend: Node.js WebSocket server
• Validation: Two-tier system — client-side binary search + server-side FST fallback
• Validation transport: WebSocket in multiplayer + HTTP fallback in single-player
• Analytics: SQLite via better-sqlite3