Secret Hitler — Online

🎮 Play it now: secret-hitler-tt29.onrender.com

No install. Open the link, Create Game, share the 4-letter room code with friends. 5–10 players. ~30 minutes per game.

A modern, multiplayer browser version of the social deduction board game. Each player joins on their own device — phone, tablet, laptop. The server holds the authoritative game state and reveals only what each player is allowed to see (your role, your hand, your peek/investigation results).

Features

• 5–10 player online multiplayer over WebSockets (no polling, instant updates)
• AI bots to fill seats for solo testing or short-handed games — host can click Add AI Player in the lobby
• Faithful to the official rules: correct role distribution per player count, all four executive powers (Investigate, Peek, Special Election, Execution), veto power after 5 fascist policies, Hitler-as-Chancellor instant win at 3+ fascist policies, term limits with the ≤5-alive special case, chaos policy on 3 failed elections
• Vote changes allowed until the final ballot — matches the face-down ballot rule from the physical game
• Live game history in the right rail (latest round on top) plus a full modal timeline showing every nomination, vote, enacted policy, and power use
• Themed art-deco UI with stylized policy-card-back deck visuals, animated policy enactment, glowing role cards, and tooltips on the executive-power slots explaining what each does
• Reconnect anywhere: refresh the page, switch devices, or come back after the server restarts — your token rejoins your seat
• Crash-resistant: room state snapshots to disk on every change, restored on boot. Survives Render redeploys and free-tier sleep.
• Mobile-first responsive layout: portrait-orientation friendly, resilient on phones

Quick start (local)

Requires Node.js 18+.

Windows one-click: double-click start.bat. Installs deps on first run, auto-frees port 3000 if a previous run is still holding it, and starts.

Manual:

npm install
npm start

The server prints both localhost and LAN URLs. Same-Wi-Fi players can join directly via the LAN URL.

Deploy your own copy

The included render.yaml makes a one-click Render deployment:

1. Fork this repo
2. Go to render.com → New + → Web Service → connect your fork
3. Render auto-detects the config → click Create Web Service
4. ~90 seconds later you have your own public URL

Works equally well on Railway, Fly.io, or any host that runs Node and respects process.env.PORT.

For temporary public access without deploying: ngrok http 3000 after starting the local server.

How to play

1. The host opens the URL and clicks Create Game → gets a 4-letter room code
2. Other players open the URL, click Join with Code, enter the code + name
3. When 5–10 players are seated, the host clicks Begin Game
4. Each player privately sees their own role
5. Host clicks Start First Round and the game begins

Official rules PDF — but the in-game How to Play button in the menu has the essentials.

Project layout

.
├── server.js          Node WebSocket + static server, all game logic
├── bots.js            AI decision logic
├── package.json
├── render.yaml        Render.com deploy config
├── start.bat          Windows launcher (auto-frees port 3000)
└── public/
    ├── index.html     Welcome / lobby / game / end screens
    ├── styles.css     All styling
    └── client.js      Renders server state, sends actions

Tech notes

• Server: Node 18+, single dependency (ws). Game state in memory plus a debounced JSON snapshot to data/rooms.json for crash recovery.
• Client: vanilla HTML/CSS/JS, no build step, no framework. Inline SVG icons, CSS-only tooltips, sticky right rail with internal scroll.
• Architecture: client receives state, never computes it; server validates every action; each player sees a filtered view (your role + public game state
  • private hands when active).
• Animations: pure CSS keyframes — card flip on role reveal, deck pulse on count change, history-row slide-in, policy-cell pop on enact.

Credits & license

Game design © Mike Boxleiter, Tommy Maranges, Mac Schubert. Secret Hitler is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — this implementation follows the same license. Non-commercial use only.

Browser support

Tested on current Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari (desktop and mobile).