Game Patterns

Watchtower gives you primitives. Here's how to build common game types.

Every multiplayer game follows a pattern for syncing state. Pick the one that fits your game:

Patterns

Cursor Party

Everyone broadcasts their position. Simple, real-time, no authority needed. Great for: collaborative tools, .io games, social experiences.

Turn-Based

Host controls game state, validates moves. Players send requests. Great for: chess, card games, board games, strategy.

Action Game

Frequent position updates with client-side smoothing. Great for: shooters, platformers, racing, fighting games.

Chat Room

Simple message passing with presence. Great for: social apps, lobbies, party games.

Choosing a Pattern

Pattern	Authority	Update Rate	Complexity
Cursor Party	None (peer-to-peer)	High (20-60Hz)	⭐
Turn-Based	Host	Low (on action)	⭐⭐
Action Game	None or Host	High (20Hz)	⭐⭐⭐
Chat Room	None	Low (on message)	⭐

Common Concepts

Host Authority

In turn-based and some action games, the host (first player to join) controls the "true" game state. Other players send requests, and the host validates and broadcasts the result.

if (room.isHost) {
  // I control the game state
  room.broadcast({ type: 'state', ...gameState })
}

Client-Side Smoothing

For action games, you'll want to smooth movement between network updates. The simplest approach is lerping:

const LERP = 0.15

function update() {
  for (const p of Object.values(players)) {
    p.x += (p.targetX - p.x) * LERP
    p.y += (p.targetY - p.y) * LERP
  }
}

Message Timestamps

Every message includes meta.serverTime and meta.tick. Use these for ordering messages or building more sophisticated interpolation.