Multiplayer Games

/app-game is a strong validation surface for the future live runtime, but game networking should not become a game-only backend. The same room, presence, participant, activity, privacy, and retention primitives should later support dashboards, launcher spaces, design reviews, founder workspaces, and visitor experience.

Why Not Game-Only

Game rooms need:

room identity;
player slots;
spectators;
input events;
snapshots;
reconnect policy;
replay policy;
privacy boundaries;
activity summaries.

Those concepts are close to live rooms and collaboration sessions. Keeping them OS-level avoids duplicate room systems for games, dashboards, and public spaces.

Candidate Games

The current local games can evolve gradually:

Snake can become a ghost-race or spectator-friendly room.
Pong can become a two-player room.
Falling Blocks can become a score race with parallel boards.
Minesweeper can become a co-op board.
Tile Merge can become a score duel or replay challenge.
Breakout can become a spectated run.
Memory Cards can become a co-op turn-based room.

Current game apps remain local and playable. This document does not change game logic.

Future Game Adapter

GameAdapter
├─ gameId
├─ roomMode
├─ maxPlayers
├─ initialState
├─ applyInput
├─ reduceEvent
├─ serializeState
├─ getPublicSnapshot
└─ getPrivatePlayerView

getPublicSnapshot is important because spectators should not always see the same state as players. getPrivatePlayerView is important for games that eventually need hidden information, permissions, or anti-cheat rules.

Roadmap

Early

Live Center shows game room mock cards.
Game apps remain local state only.
No networked play.
No authoritative server loop.
No real spectator connection.

Mid

Room lobby for selected games.
Player slots and invite links.
Read-only spectators for simple games.
Input event model for selected games.
Basic reconnect policy.

Later

Authoritative game loop.
Server-validated input.
Spectator snapshots.
Replay logs.
Reconnect and pause policy.
Privacy-aware room history.
Shared @prox-os/live-runtime game adapter registry.