GameForgeStudio

GameForgeStudio is a full-stack game platform hub for developers and gamers. It combines project management, publishing-oriented workflows, gamer discovery, community features, and external app navigation into one central experience.

This project is built as a professional in-progress platform: it demonstrates the architecture, UX direction, authentication flow, data modeling, and ecosystem strategy for a larger GameForgeStudio product suite. Production hardening is planned, but the current focus is the core full-stack application and user experience.

Tech Stack

Layer	Tools
Frontend	React 18, TypeScript, Vite, Wouter, TanStack Query
UI	Tailwind CSS, Radix UI, shadcn/ui-style components, Lucide icons
Backend	Node.js, Express, TypeScript, session-based auth
Data	PostgreSQL, Neon serverless Postgres, Drizzle ORM, Drizzle Kit
Validation	Zod, drizzle-zod, shared TypeScript schemas
Build	Vite client build, esbuild server bundle

Features

Developer Experience

• Developer dashboard with project summaries and platform metrics.
• Project management views for organizing game projects by status, engine, platform, and ownership.
• Game engine selection flow for starting projects with engines such as Unity, Unreal, Godot, and GameForge Rory.
• Asset store, cart, bundle, deploy, analytics, calendar, and community surfaces for a creator-focused workflow.

Gamer Experience

• Gamer homepage focused on discovery, library activity, community updates, and Buttonz access.
• Store and game detail pages for browsing live games from GameForge creators.
• Game library with playtime, favorites, archived items, and owned-game state.
• Community and calendar areas that connect player activity back into the platform.

Authentication And Roles

• Session-based authentication using Express sessions and HTTP-only cookies.
• Password hashing with bcrypt.
• Role-aware navigation for Developer and Gamer experiences.
• Shared user profile model used across platform features and external app integration.

Buttonz Integration

Buttonz is maintained as a separate communication app in the GameForgeStudio ecosystem. GFS acts as the identity and navigation hub, launching Buttonz externally through a backend-owned external app handoff instead of embedding it directly in the main platform.

This keeps the communication layer independent while still letting users move from GFS into Buttonz with ecosystem context.

Architecture

GameForgeStudio uses a full-stack TypeScript architecture with shared data definitions between the client and server.

client/          React application, pages, hooks, UI components
server/          Express API, session handling, route registration, storage layer
shared/          Drizzle schema definitions, Zod insert schemas, shared types
attached_assets/ Static product imagery, icons, and generated assets

Frontend

• React components are organized around pages, reusable UI primitives, and domain-specific hooks.
• TanStack Query handles server state, request caching, and loading/error states.
• Wouter provides lightweight client-side routing.
• Tailwind and Radix-based components provide a consistent developer-tool style interface.

Backend

• Express exposes REST-style API routes for authentication, users, projects, assets, carts, purchases, community posts, game libraries, and Buttonz-related chat data.
• Session middleware manages authenticated user state through cookies.
• Zod validates incoming data before it reaches the storage layer.

Data Model

• Drizzle table definitions live in shared/schema.ts.
• Types are inferred from the schema so client and server code share the same source of truth.
• PostgreSQL is the intended persistent database, with Neon support for serverless hosted Postgres.
• The storage layer abstracts database operations behind a consistent interface.

Local Development

1. Install dependencies

npm install

2. Configure environment variables

Copy .env.example to .env and fill in the values for your local or hosted database.

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://username:password@host/database?sslmode=require
SESSION_SECRET=replace-with-a-long-random-secret
PORT=5000
GFS_PUBLIC_URL=http://localhost:5173
GFS_API_URL=http://localhost:5000
BUTTONZ_APP_ID=buttonz
BUTTONZ_UI_URL=http://localhost:5175
BUTTONZ_CALLBACK_URL=http://localhost:5175

3. Push the database schema

npm run db:push

4. Start the development server

npm run dev

5. Run checks and production build

npm run check
npm run build

Scripts

Command	Description
npm run dev	Start the Express/Vite development server.
npm run dev:server	Start the backend server in development mode.
npm run dev:client	Start the Vite client dev server.
npm run check	Run TypeScript type checking.
npm run build	Build the client and bundle the server for production.
npm run start	Run the production server bundle.
npm run db:push	Push Drizzle schema changes to the database.

Current Status

GameForgeStudio is active and in progress. The platform currently demonstrates the core hub concept, dual Developer/Gamer experiences, session authentication, project and store workflows, community features, and external Buttonz navigation.

The next phase is focused on making the platform behavior tighter and more production-shaped while keeping the current status honest and clearly documented.

Related App

• Buttonz - standalone communication app for the GameForgeStudio ecosystem.