GeoNerds | BlueLaysLover

What It Is

GeoNerds is a real-time geography quiz app where players compete in flag guessing, capital city matching, and map identification solo or in competitive 1v1 matches with ELO ratings, streaks, and leaderboards.

Game Modes

🏳️ Flag Mode

Identify a country from its flag. From obvious ones to the ones you've never seen.

🏛️ Capital Mode

Match countries to their capital cities. Harder than it sounds.

🗺️ Map Mode

Identify a highlighted country on a world map. Curated to only include countries that render clearly.

How It Works

1. Pick a Mode

Choose flags, capitals, or map identification

2. Practice or Compete

Solo practice (infinite) or 1v1 competitive matchmaking

3. Answer Fast

Scoring rewards both accuracy and speed with streak bonuses

4. Climb the Board

ELO ratings, daily leaderboards, and match history

Features

Real-time multiplayer : games run over WebSockets with sub-second latency , bottlenecks yet to be explored tho.
Private rooms : create a room, share a 5-character code, play with friends (up to 8 players) if you are not lonely... highly unlikely.
Ready-up system : lobby countdown before the game starts so nobody misses the first question.
ELO rating system : competitive 1v1 matches with proper ELO computation
Streak scoring : consecutive correct answers earn bonus points, capped to prevent farming
Anti-cheat : Rate Limiting , Tokens verification , Answer verification on backend side . Many more auth checks left to implement...
Leaderboards : Based on all time ELO ranking
Match history : full history of competitive games with scores and opponents

Built With

Backend

Go
WebSockets
Redis (game state)
MongoDB Atlas (profiles)

Frontend

Next.js
Firebase Auth
Deployed on Vercel

Infrastructure

AWS EC2
Docker Compose
Caddy (auto-TLS)

What's Next

ELO-range matchmaking : only match players within ±100 ELO, expanding the range over time
Adaptive difficulty : if you're acing flags, start getting the obscure ones
More modes : currency, language, continent grouping
Spectator mode : watch competitive matches live