The latest articles on DEV Community by Dieter Maes (@dieter_maes_cf83ccb0ad174). https://dev.to/dieter_maes_cf83ccb0ad174 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%2F4142678%2F97c9955b-4a8a-4c6c-a8b8-7115294a1f7c.png https://dev.to/dieter_maes_cf83ccb0ad174 en Dieter Maes Fri, 25 Sep 2026 10:00:22 +0000 https://dev.to/dieter_maes_cf83ccb0ad174/i-built-a-multiplayer-pigeon-racing-manager-as-a-wordpress-plugin-2a2o https://dev.to/dieter_maes_cf83ccb0ad174/i-built-a-multiplayer-pigeon-racing-manager-as-a-wordpress-plugin-2a2o <p>Pigeon racing is huge in Belgium, Poland and Taiwan, with hundreds of thousands of fanciers worldwide, but there are almost no games about it. So I built one: <strong><a href="https://wingderby.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">WingDerby</a></strong>, a Hattrick-style management game where you run a pigeon loft.</p> <p>The unusual part is the stack: <strong>the whole multiplayer game runs as a WordPress plugin + theme.</strong></p> <h2> Why WordPress? </h2> <p>I already needed WordPress for the content and SEO side: per-language URLs (<code>/nl/</code>, <code>/fr/</code>, …) with hreflang, XML sitemaps and JSON-LD. Once that existed, reusing its user system, routing and cron for the game itself was tempting. It meant I could spend my time on the simulation instead of on auth, i18n and admin screens.</p> <h2> What runs where </h2> <ul> <li> <strong>Races, breeding, ageing, the market and bot lofts</strong> all run from WP cron jobs.</li> <li> <strong>Twelve federations</strong> (Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Taiwan, South Africa, Brazil and more), each with its own season. Southern hemisphere federations race during the northern winter, so scheduling is hemisphere-aware.</li> <li> <strong>Per-player timezones</strong>, so a race that is released "at 09:00" makes sense wherever you live.</li> <li> <strong>Live race tracking</strong> while birds are on their way home.</li> <li>A <strong>Hattrick-style market</strong> with bidding, bid history and sales records. Bots can bid too, and that can be tuned all the way down to off.</li> </ul> <h2> Design rules I stuck to </h2> <ul> <li> <strong>No pay-to-win.</strong> Nothing you can buy makes a pigeon faster.</li> <li> <strong>No seeded stats.</strong> Every pigeon's and player's record starts at zero; only races actually flown in the game count.</li> <li> <strong>Real terminology.</strong> Basketing, widowhood, cocks and hens, ring numbers per federation.</li> </ul> <h2> One gotcha worth sharing </h2> <p>On LiteSpeed hosting, requests for my sitemap URLs were answered with a 404 <em>before WordPress ever saw them</em>. The fix was to handle those paths explicitly in WordPress (via <code>pre_handle_404</code> and <code>template_redirect</code>) so the server hands them over instead of short-circuiting. If your WP sitemaps mysteriously 404 on LiteSpeed, check that first.</p> <h2> Would I do it again? </h2> <p>For a slow, tick-based management game: yes. Nothing needs real-time sockets, most "gameplay" is scheduled jobs and database updates, and WordPress gave me a mature base for free. For anything fast-paced I would pick something else.</p> <p>It's a solo project, free to play in six languages at <strong><a href="https://wingderby.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://wingderby.com</a></strong>. Happy to answer questions about using WordPress as a game backend.</p> gamedev wordpress php showdev