Make your game

Roles

Let the room decide who may start, pause or change your game, with defaults that work in any room.

Some things only certain players should do: start the match, pick teams, change the settings. But who that is depends on the room: one room has admins, another lets everyone do everything.

So the work is split. Your game declares its roles, with a sensible default. The room decides who holds them, in code or by hand. Your game never needs to know what an "admin" is.

Declare

Declare roles in top-level code:

src/roles.ts

// The room owner is an admin, unless the room decides otherwise.
const admin = game.role("admin", {
  default: "owner",
  label: "Admin: runs the match",
});

// No one referees until someone is given the role.
const referee = game.role("referee", {
  default: "nobody",
  label: "Referee",
});

The default applies when nothing else decides:

"everyone": every player.
"nobody": no one, until the game, the room or a person gives it.
"owner": the room's owner, when they're playing.

Give a control the role as its audience, and its request requires. Players without the role don't see the control, or see it disabled, and can't send the request:

src/roles.ts

ui.menu(
  ui.stack({
    children: [
      // Hidden from players who are not admins.
      ui.button({
        label: "Start",
        audience: { role: admin },
        on: { activate: ui.request({ event: "start", requires: admin }) },
      }),
      // Shown, but disabled, to players who are neither admin nor referee.
      ui.button({
        label: "Pause",
        audience: { role: referee },
        outside: Outside.Disabled,
        on: {
          activate: ui.request({ event: "pause", requires: [admin, referee] }),
        },
      }),
    ],
  }),
);

requires also takes several roles; holding any of them is enough.

Check and hand out

role.has(player) and role.holders() answer right away. A game can give and take its own roles, here to make the first player an admin:

src/roles.ts

// `requires` already gated these requests.
game.on("ui-request", (request) => {
  if (request.event === "start") {
    game.start();
  } else if (request.event === "pause") {
    game.pause();
  }
});

// With no admin in the room, the first player to join becomes one.
game.on("player-join", ({ player }) => {
  if (admin.holders().length === 0) {
    admin.give(player);
  }
});

// Every change, from the game, the room or a person, arrives here.
game.on("role-change", ({ player, role, held }) => {
  if (role === referee && held && !admin.has(player)) {
    game.send(`${player.name} is refereeing`);
  }
});

A give or take takes effect from the next turn, with a role-change event.
The room's decision, and a person's in the Room management modal, wins over the game's.
Keep secret identities, such as who is "it", in game state with audiences, not in roles: rooms can see roles.

For the room's side, see Roles & moderation.

Declare

Gate the Menu

Check and hand out