Is there a proper way to end a game using a custom endpoint?

[kumarajith]

I have a case where the game has to end if a player runs out of time for a move. In case the player disconnects from the game and then times out, I want the game to end.
The way I'm planning to do this is for any of the other connected players to send a request to a custom endpoint. This endpoint will 1) Validate if the game is over or not
2) End the game

Should I just setState and add 'gameover' to ctx? Is there a better way to do this?

[delucis]

@kumarajith Do you mean call setState directly on the database? The drawback with that is that it won’t update clients — database state isn’t reactive by itself, it only gets broadcast to clients when changed by moves/events/etc. in the game.

One pattern that might work would be something like this:

import { INVALID_MOVE } from 'boardgame.io/core';

const timeoutDuration = 60_000; // or whatever makes sense for the game

const game = {
  turn: {
    onMove: (G, ctx) => {
      // When a player moves, store the time of the move.
      // You could also reset this when the turn starts or wherever it makes sense.
      G.timeAtLastMove = Date.now();
    },
  },
  moves: {
    // Move that checks if the last move was too far in the past and ends the game if so.
    requestTimeout: (G, ctx) => {
      const timeSinceLastMove = Date.now() - G.timeAtLastMove;
      if (timeSinceLastMove  > timeoutDuration) {
        ctx.endGame(/* value to set as ctx.gameover */);
      } else {
        // If the game hasn’t timed out, declare this move invalid, so state remains unchanged.
        return INVALID_MOVE;
      }
    },
  },
};

The tricky part is how you call the requestTimeout move. If the other connected players do this, then this needs to be permitted by using stages. That works, but depending on the game it can add some complexity to your game set-up. If you’re already considering custom endpoints, there may be a way to dispatch the move to the socket server from the API server, but that’s not something I’ve ever looked into.