Who Said That? — Game App

The app for Who Said That? — a private, friends-only online party game. A question appears, everyone writes a funny answer, then players drag guesses of who wrote what and vote a superlative ("Classic Karl", "Grossest"…). Loaded Questions / Fibbage hybrid — zero right answers, low-stakes hang.

This repository contains the application (backend + web client). The game design spec, question content, and validation pipeline live in the companion content repo:

• Content/spec: https://forgejo.richelson.cloud/mercury/WhoSaidThat (game-design-spec.md is the binding spec, 754 lines, Appendix C on wire anti-cheat is non-negotiable)
• App repo: https://forgejo.richelson.cloud/mercury/whosaidthat-app (PUBLIC)

Quickstart (local dev)

Backend (Go, :8080):

cd backend
go build -o /tmp/wst-server ./cmd/server/ && /tmp/wst-server

Deck files: By default the server loads data/deck.json (Reddit-sourced questions). A separate Caleb-authored deck with 50 questions across 4 categories is available at data/questions_caleb.json. Use it instead:

DECK_PATH=data/questions_caleb.json go run ./cmd/server

All categories are shuffled together each round — you'll get variety automatically. Both files use the same v2 schema so swapping is zero-config.

Frontend (Vite, :5173 — proxies /api and /ws to :8080):

cd web
npm install
npx vite --host

Open http://localhost:5173. Create a room, share the code, join from another browser. Only port 5173 needs forwarding if you're testing from another machine (Vite proxies the backend).

Current gameplay behavior (2026-09-11 playtest build)

• Superlative is chosen randomly by the server each round (13-entry list) and shown to all players during the answer phase — no picker.
• Clicking the timer in any phase adds 15 seconds (extend_timer).
• Result phase: 60s timer, "Next Round →" bypasses it; each answer shows who guessed it correctly vs. wrong; scoreboard shows this-round points + cumulative total with tie-aware medals.
• Deck: questions_caleb.json (50 Q / 4 decks) is copied from the user's working file — see CONTEXTMAP.md for the exact path. No mapping file.

Project docs — read these first

File	Purpose
CURRENT.md	Live state — what's done, what's next. READ FIRST.
CONTEXTMAP.md	Where everything lives.
DECISIONS.md	Why it's built this way (app-level decisions).
README.md	This file.

Docker (quick start on another machine)

git clone <repo-url> whosaidthat-app
cd whosaidthat-app

# Optional: customize with a .env file (see sample.env)
cp sample.env .env
docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:8206. The container serves the frontend and API on a single port — no separate frontend dev server needed. Uses the questions_caleb.json deck by default.

.env file — copy sample.env to .env to customize:

Variable	Default	Description
QUESTIONS_FILE	data/questions_caleb.json	Question deck file (relative to backend/data/)
PORT_UI	8206	Host port mapped to container's :8080
NETWORK_NAME	(none)	External Docker network (for Caddy in separate compose)

Container env vars (set automatically, but can be overridden):

Variable	Default	Description
PORT	8080	Backend listen port (inside container)
WEB_DIR	web/dist	Static frontend directory
WST_DISCONNECT_DROP	30s	Drop disconnected lobby players after this
WST_SWEEP_INTERVAL	10s	How often to sweep stale lobby connections

To use the original Reddit-sourced deck instead, set QUESTIONS_FILE=data/deck.json in your .env.

Game-design decisions (rules, scoring, anti-cheat) live in the content repo's decisions.md — that's the design ledger. This repo's DECISIONS.md covers app-architecture choices (stack, repo layout, persistence).

Repos at a glance

• mercury/WhoSaidThat (content, private): spec, decisions, scrape.py → data/deck.json, validation/ webapp.
• mercury/whosaidthat-app (app, public): backend/ Go, web/ React.