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Boggle

A self-hosted multiplayer word game. Players join a shared room from their own devices and race to find as many words as possible on a randomised letter grid before time runs out. Supports both 4×4 and 5×5 board sizes.

URL: boggle.xmsystems.co.uk

How to Play

  1. Open boggle.xmsystems.co.uk/play on each player's device and join or create a room.
  2. When the host starts the round, a randomised letter grid is revealed.
  3. Find as many words as you can before time runs out by connecting adjacent letters (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) — you cannot reuse the same tile in a single word.
  4. Words must be at least 3 letters long. Submit each word as you find it.
  5. At the end of the round, any word found by more than one player is cancelled — only unique words score.
  6. Longer words score more points. The player with the highest score wins.

Pages

URL Purpose
/ Main entry point
/play Join/create a room and play — open on each player's device

The how-to-play guide is also accessible via games.xmsystems.co.uk/boggle.

nginx Config

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name boggle.xmsystems.co.uk;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://10.36.100.151:3003;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_buffering off;
        proxy_read_timeout 3600s;
        proxy_send_timeout 3600s;
    }
}

All traffic (including WebSocket upgrades) is proxied directly to the boggle container at 10.36.100.151:3003.

Backend

Docker Compose: /ssd/docker/docker-compose/boggle/docker-compose.yml

networks:
  phobos-network:
    external: true

services:
  boggle:
    image: node:22-alpine
    container_name: boggle
    working_dir: /app
    command: node server.js
    volumes:
      - /ssd/docker/appdata/boggle:/app
    environment:
      - PORT=3002
      - NODE_ENV=production
    networks:
      phobos-network:
        ipv4_address: 172.20.0.205
    ports:
      - "3003:3002"
    restart: unless-stopped
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "wget", "-qO-", "http://localhost:3002/"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 15s

The container runs the appdata directory directly as a volume using the stock node:22-alpine image — no custom build step needed. To apply code changes, restart the container:

cd /ssd/docker/docker-compose/boggle
docker compose up -d --force-recreate

Dependencies: Express + ws (WebSockets)

File Locations

File Path
Main entry page /ssd/docker/appdata/boggle/public/index.html
Player game page /ssd/docker/appdata/boggle/public/play.html
Node.js server /ssd/docker/appdata/boggle/server.js
Word list /ssd/docker/appdata/boggle/server/words.txt
Hub info page /ssd/docker/appdata/nginx/boggle.html
Hub tile image /ssd/docker/appdata/nginx/boggle.jpg
Docker Compose /ssd/docker/docker-compose/boggle/docker-compose.yml