Hokm Multiplayer Setup Guide | FarsiRadio.com

Use wss:// for hosted servers (required by HTTPS pages). You can also override per-visit with ?hokmServer=wss://....

Deploy on Render (5 minutes)

1. Sign up: Create a free account at render.com . Connect your GitHub account when prompted.
2. Put server.js on GitHub: Create a new public repo (e.g. hokm-royale-server) with just the server.js file and a package.json:

   {
     "name": "hokm-royale-server",
     "version": "1.0.0",
     "main": "server.js",
     "engines": { "node": ">=18" },
     "scripts": { "start": "node server.js" },
     "dependencies": { "ws": "^8.16.0" }
   }

3. Create the Render service: In Render, click New → Web Service, select your repo, and use these settings:
   • Environment: Node
   • Build Command:npm install
   • Start Command:node server.js
   • Instance Type: Free
   • Region: pick the one closest to your players
4. Bind the port: Render sets process.env.PORT. Make sure server.js listens on it (not hardcoded 8000):

   const PORT = process.env.PORT || 8000;
   server.listen(PORT, () => console.log('Hokm server on', PORT));

5. Deploy & grab the URL: Render gives you an HTTPS URL like https://hokm-royale.onrender.com. Your WebSocket URL is the same host with wss:// and /ws:

   wss://hokm-royale.onrender.com/ws

6. Paste it above in the input field and click Save. Play Hokm → “Online” → you'll queue against real players.

⚠️ Render free tier notes

• Free services sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity — first connection takes ~30s to wake.
• Upgrade to the $7/mo Starter plan to keep the server always-on for smoother matchmaking.
• WebSocket connections stay open freely — Render doesn't count them against request limits.

Can we skip the outside server?

A real-time 4-player card game needs a persistent WebSocket process to relay moves between all players' browsers. Lovable/Supabase edge functions are stateless and time out after ~30s, so they can't hold a live game session. Here are the workaround options in order of effort:

1. Play vs CPU (built-in, no server): Works right now. Three AI opponents, offline-capable, zero setup. Recommended for the majority of players.
2. Supabase Realtime channels (broker-only, still needs client trust): We could rewrite the multiplayer layer to use Supabase Realtime as a pub/sub broker — no external server. Downside: game state has to live in the browser, so cheating is possible. Good for friend games, bad for a public queue. ~2–3 days of work.
3. Deploy server.js anywhere (Render / Railway / Fly.io / Cloudflare Workers Durable Objects):This guide covers Render because the free tier is the simplest. Fly.io and Railway have equivalent flows.
4. Peer-to-peer WebRTC: Direct player-to-player. Removes server hosting entirely but needs a signaling endpoint (Supabase Realtime works) and NAT traversal (STUN/TURN). Major rewrite.