JoclyMatch

A tiny, self-hostable game server to play Jocly board games online with a friend — no database, no account, no tracking.

What you get

• Play against the computer — pick a game from the panel and play solo.
• Play with a friend — create a match and get two links: one for player A, one for player B. Send the other link to your opponent and play at your own pace.
• Read the rules — every game comes with its rules, available directly in the interface.
• Chat — a simple in-match chat between the two players.
• Save / snapshot — export a match as a JSON file, or take a picture of the board.

Design choices (features or limitations, you decide)

• No database. All you need is a web server with PHP. Matches are stored as plain, human-readable JSON text files.
• No login, no password. Absolutely no personal data is stored — only the moves played (and the chat messages) of each match.
• No ads, no tracking.
• Honor system. Anyone who has a link can play that side of the board. You could cheat by opening both links… but we are gentlemen, aren't we?
• Simple polling by default. The board refreshes with a classic periodic HTTP polling, which works on any shared PHP hosting. Optional faster modes exist (see below).

Installation

Requirements: any web server able to run PHP. No database, no framework, no build step.

1. Copy the content of this repository to your web server.
2. Get a Jocly distribution (the jocly.js bundle and its games) from jocly2 and make it reachable from your site.
3. Create a writable directory for match files, e.g. saves/ (the web server user must be able to write to it).
4. Create a localconf.php file at the root of the site:

<?php
// URL of this JoclyMatch installation (with trailing slash)
$joclyMatchURL  = "https://example.org/joclymatch/";

// URL of the match player page
$joclyPlayerURL = "https://example.org/joclymatch/index.php";

// Path or URL of the Jocly library bundle
$joclyDistPath  = "dist/browser/jocly.js";

// Directory where match files are stored (with trailing slash, writable)
$savePath       = "saves/";

5. Open gamespanel.php in your browser, pick a game, and play!

Optional: faster move notifications

By default, opponents' moves show up through periodic polling. Everything below is disabled by default and entirely optional — without these lines in localconf.php, the behavior is unchanged.

Long-polling (any hosting whose PHP worker pool can hold open requests):

$enableLongPolling = true;

Near-instant push notifications (requires a VPS able to run a permanent Node.js process). A small Node server watches the saves/ directory and notifies connected players through WebSocket the moment a move is saved; regular polling keeps running as a safety net. See push/README.md for deployment instructions, then declare the WebSocket URL:

$pushWsUrl = "wss://example.org/push/";

Related projects

• jocly2 — the Jocly board game library (games, 2D/3D views, AI)
• jcfrog/jocly-simple-match — the original experiment this project is based on
• tabulon — Tabulon can play remotely with a joclymatch server

License

AGPL-3.0 (see package.json) — Tabulon builds on the Jocly library and JoclyBoard, both AGPL.