Nouron — A Free Space Opera Browsergame

Nouron is a sci-fi strategy browsergame built with PHP 8.2, Laravel 12, MySQL 8, Alpine.js and PicoCSS. The application is in active development with a completed core architecture (Phase 3, 2026).

Quickstart

Requirements: PHP 8.2+ (CI uses 8.4) with pdo_mysql, MySQL 8.0, Composer, Node.js/npm

Any operating system works; how you install PHP and MySQL is up to you (native, Docker, Homebrew, …). Database setup and an example environment (Windows 11 with WSL2): docs/dev-setup-mysql.md.

# After cloning, install dependencies
composer install

# Copy environment file and adjust as needed
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

# Create the database and seed test data
php artisan migrate:fresh --seed

# Start local dev server
php artisan serve

# Run tests (Feature suite — needs the local MySQL test database, see docs/dev-setup-mysql.md)
php artisan test --testsuite=Feature

Test accounts

After seeding, the database contains Simpsons test characters. All accounts share the same password:

Username	Email	Password	Role
Bart	[email protected]	test123	admin — Colony "Springfield"
Homer	[email protected]	test123	player
Marge	[email protected]	test123	player
Lisa	[email protected]	test123	player

Resetting game state

php artisan migrate:fresh --seed

Database

Nouron runs on MySQL 8 everywhere (local, CI, production). Local setup without Docker: see docs/dev-setup-mysql.md. The schema is a single baseline migration, the reference data comes from the idempotent ReferenceDataSeeder. The test suite uses the separate database nouron_test.

Useful Artisan commands

# Sync ship/building/knowledge values from config files to the database
php artisan game:sync-config

# Preview sync changes without writing
php artisan game:sync-config --dry-run

# Manually trigger a game tick (dev/testing — in-game this is triggered by the player)
php artisan game:tick

# Simulate a game tick and show a before/after diff — no DB writes
php artisan game:tick-dry-run

# Simulate for a single colony only
php artisan game:tick-dry-run --colony=1

# Drop all tables, run migrations, and seed (dev only — asks for confirmation)
php artisan db:reset

# Seed a demo colony state for the logged-in user's colony (useful for UI testing)
php artisan colony:seed-demo

Sol trigger

In solo mode the player manually advances the game by clicking "Nächsten Sol starten" in the UI — there is no fixed scheduler. The game:tick command can be used from the terminal for dev/testing purposes.

Note: The Laravel scheduler (routes/console.php) still contains a legacy dailyAt('03:00') entry. This will be replaced once the Run system and the in-game trigger are implemented (see GDD §2).

Environment & Dev Settings

Copy .env.example to .env. The most relevant settings for local development:

Game Bypass Flags

These flags disable specific game rule checks so you can test individual systems freely. All default to false (rules enforced).

Flag	What it bypasses
GAME_BYPASS_AP=true	Navigation, Economy and Construction AP checks
GAME_BYPASS_RESOURCES=true	Resource cost checks when building/researching
GAME_BYPASS_SUPPLY=true	Supply capacity checks for buildings, ships and advisors

Common test scenarios:

# Free-click everything (no checks at all) — fastest way to explore the game
GAME_BYPASS_AP=true
GAME_BYPASS_RESOURCES=true
GAME_BYPASS_SUPPLY=true

# Test AP behaviour with real checks active
GAME_BYPASS_AP=false
GAME_BYPASS_RESOURCES=true
GAME_BYPASS_SUPPLY=true

# Test Supply behaviour with real checks active
GAME_BYPASS_AP=true
GAME_BYPASS_RESOURCES=true
GAME_BYPASS_SUPPLY=false

Note: All bypass flags are blocked in production — the app will refuse to start if any flag is true when APP_ENV=production.

Deprecated: GAME_DEV_MODE=true still works as a shortcut (sets all three flags) but logs a deprecation warning. Use the individual flags instead.

Bug Tracker

https://github.com/nouron/nouron/issues

Community

• Facebook
• X / Twitter

Authors and Supporters

• Mario Gehnke — https://github.com/tector
• Thanks to Peter Wippermann (www.todoz.de) and Jacqueline Wiesenberg for some of the graphics.

Copyright and License

Copyright 2012–2026 Mario Gehnke

The source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License V3. See:

• LICENSE.txt
• http://www.gnu.org/licenses/

All graphics and texts are licensed (unless otherwise noted) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). See:

• (de) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/de
• (en) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/de/deed.en

This project uses third-party frameworks and libraries with their own licenses:

• Laravel
• Alpine.js
• PicoCSS
• Bootstrap Icons (fonts only)