Bombo — P2P Bomberman

A serverless, P2P Bomberman-style game that uses:

• WebRTC DataChannels for low-latency real-time gameplay
• Pubsub-style relay for lobby discovery and WebRTC signaling (minimal bootstrap)
• Host-authoritative game state: one peer simulates, others send inputs and receive state

No long-lived game servers: you run a tiny relay (or use a public one), and players connect directly via WebRTC for the actual game.

Quick start

1. Start the relay (one terminal):

   npm run relay
   

   Listens on ws://localhost:9090 by default. Set PORT to change it.

2. Start the app (another terminal):

   npm run dev
   

3. Open two browser tabs at the dev server URL:

   • In one tab: click Host game
   • In the other: pick the game from the list and click Join
   • Play: WASD / Arrows move, Space places a bomb

Architecture

• Relay server (scripts/relay-server.mjs): WebSocket server that broadcasts every message to all connected clients. Used only for:

  • Lobby: host publishes “game open” with game id and peer id; clients subscribe and see the list.
  • Signaling: SDP offer/answer and ICE candidates for WebRTC, so peers can open a direct DataChannel.

• Game traffic goes over a WebRTC DataChannel (peer-to-peer), not through the relay.

• Gameplay: Host runs the game loop, applies inputs from all players, and sends state snapshots over the DataChannel. Clients send inputs and render received state.

Scripts

• npm run dev — Vite dev server
• npm run build — Production build
• npm run preview — Preview production build
• npm run relay — Start WebSocket relay (lobby + signaling)
• npm run bootstrap — Start libp2p bootstrap server (optional; requires compatible libp2p stack)

Env (Vite)

• VITE_BOOTSTRAP_WS — WebSocket URL for relay (default: ws://localhost:9090)

Optional: libp2p

The app can use libp2p + GossipSub instead of the relay for discovery and signaling (same WebRTC game channel). To do that you’d need:

1. A running libp2p bootstrap node (e.g. npm run bootstrap after fixing the current bootstrap script’s deps).
2. Build/run with libp2p support (e.g. set VITE_USE_RELAY=false and resolve the current @libp2p/utils / pipe export issue in the libp2p stack).

The relay mode is the default so the game works out of the box with minimal setup.