chronojam/solarium

Solarium is a turn-based game server, the backend engine that powers multiplayer games where players take turns rather than everything happening in real-time. Think of it like the referee and scoreboard for online turn-based strategy games, card games, or board games. Instead of building game logic from scratch, developers can use Solarium to handle the tricky parts: managing whose turn it is, validating moves, keeping game state in sync across players, and making sure everyone sees the same game board. The server works by exposing an interface that games can talk to using gRPC, which is a standard way for different programs to communicate. Developers integrate Solarium into their game by calling these interfaces, sending it actions like "player 1 moved their piece" or "player 2 played a card," and the server processes those turns and sends back the updated game state. The README doesn't dive deep into how the game logic itself is configured, but the core idea is that you run the Solarium server and point your game client at it. Getting started is straightforward: download the pre-built executable for your operating system (Linux, Mac, or Windows), run it, and you're up and running. The project provides binaries rather than requiring you to compile it yourself, which lowers the barrier to entry significantly. This would appeal to indie game developers, game studios, or anyone building a multiplayer turn-based game who wants to avoid reinventing the wheel. Instead of spending months building server infrastructure to handle game turns and player synchronization, they can focus on what makes their game unique, the rules, art, and player experience. The project is built with Bazel, a build system that handles complex dependencies, and provides tooling to generate documentation and create packages for different platforms.