Nouron — A Free Space Opera Browsergame

Nouron is a sci-fi strategy browsergame built with PHP 8.2, Laravel 12, SQLite, Alpine.js + PicoCSS (new screens) and Bootstrap 5 + jQuery (legacy screens).

Quickstart

Requirements: PHP 8.2+, Composer

Windows users: The project runs under WSL2. Run all commands inside your WSL2 terminal.

# 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 — uses in-memory SQLite, no setup needed)
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

The database file (data/db/nouron.db) is not committed to the repository. The schema is managed entirely via Laravel migrations and the initial data via seeders. The test suite uses an in-memory SQLite database and requires no separate setup.

Useful Artisan commands

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

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

# Manually trigger a game tick (normally runs via scheduler)
php artisan game:tick

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

Scheduler setup

The game tick runs once per day at 03:00. To activate the Laravel scheduler on your server, add one cron entry:

* * * * * cd /path/to/nouron && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

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
• Bootstrap 5
• jQuery