The latest articles on DEV Community by 丙赟信息 (@bysoftgames). https://dev.to/bysoftgames https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4182811%2F9e78c424-9d58-4616-aa9c-96cf20c67b10.png https://dev.to/bysoftgames en 丙赟信息 Tue, 13 Oct 2026 17:53:55 +0000 https://dev.to/bysoftgames/i-built-a-stone-merging-game-with-a-global-daily-leaderboard-2kcj https://dev.to/bysoftgames/i-built-a-stone-merging-game-with-a-global-daily-leaderboard-2kcj <p>I built <strong>Pebble Merge</strong>, a physics puzzle game that runs in the browser: drop stones, merge same-colored ones, score points, and try not to stack past the top line.</p> <p>The part I care about most is the <strong>global daily leaderboard</strong>. Every day all players get the same seeded board (a new seed rolls at UTC midnight), so after you finish a round you can see where you rank worldwide.</p> <p>Link: <a href="https://pebblemerge.bysoft.site/" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://pebblemerge.bysoft.site/</a></p> <p><a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fxmpl8nxzgazofpxr6ok2.jpg" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fxmpl8nxzgazofpxr6ok2.jpg" alt="Mid-game: the board gets crowded fast" width="800" height="720"></a></p> <p>Three modes:</p> <ul> <li> <strong>Classic</strong> - beat your own best</li> <li> <strong>Daily</strong> - same seed as everyone else, global board</li> <li> <strong>Zen</strong> - no game over, just merge</li> </ul> <h2> How the leaderboard handles cheating </h2> <p>The client never sends a score. It sends a <em>merge log</em>. The server replays that log through the real game logic (<code>core.js</code>, the exact file the browser runs) and recomputes the score, then checks:</p> <ol> <li>the daily seed matches today's UTC seed</li> <li>the recomputed score equals the claimed score</li> <li>stone mass is conserved across the whole log</li> <li>the score is under the theoretical upper bound</li> <li>per-IP hourly submission cap</li> </ol> <p>Inflated scores get rejected, and cheating means reimplementing the physics, not editing a number in devtools.</p> <h2> Stack </h2> <ul> <li>vanilla JS + Matter.js for the physics</li> <li>static assets on Cloudflare Workers</li> <li>Node + Express + Postgres for the score service, on a Synology NAS behind a Cloudflare tunnel</li> </ul> <p><a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fycz3k6u5rb8tlns4id4f.jpg" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fycz3k6u5rb8tlns4id4f.jpg" alt="A finished round: 3299 points after 268 merges" width="800" height="720"></a></p> <p>That last one is the only reason a global leaderboard costs me nothing to run: no server bill, and I own the data.</p> <p>Feedback on the physics tuning and bug reports are very welcome - I would rather hear what feels wrong now than after I add more modes.</p> gamedev showdev javascript webdev