I'm building this browser game as a solo project for two simple reasons: First, I wanted to dive deeper into the Symfony framework, and second, I miss that old-school browser game magic that keeps you hooked all night. No loot boxes, no damn pay-to-win bullshit. Just a bit of nostalgia, a lot of clicking, and maybe a dash of regret when you realize it’s 3 AM again.
Is it a little bananas to build a PHP browser game in 2023? Yeah, maybe. Just for the fun of it and for the sake of good old memories, I want to create a game that feels like the ones I sank way too much time into back in the day.
At the heart of this project is my lifelong love for science fiction. Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri was never just a game to me: it was a glimpse into a world of philosophy, politics, and survival among the stars. And I still get goosebumps thinking about seeing a Stargate open for the first time, or the raw tension of a showdown in The Expanse (top-tier show btw, go watch it!). Those universes shaped how I think about stories, strategy, and what makes sci-fi worlds truly unforgettable.
So imagine this browser game as a little love letter to that era. A game where you can name your ships and customize your fleet. Take things a bit slower, actually think through your next move. It’s an homage to OGame and 2Moons, The Dark Millennium, and of course Alpha Centauri, with a little wink to the kind of sci-fi that makes you ponder the big questions.
On the technical side, I try to keep things snappy, especially for players within the EU. For anyone interested in the specs, here’s the (2023) tech stack:
- Backend: PHP 8.3+ with Symfony 7.2, Nginx, MariaDB (event-driven)
- Frontend: Bootstrap 5.3, Vanilla JS (I’m no frontend wizard, but hey, it works)
- Server: Linux KVM, AMD EPYC™ 9634, 16GB RAM, NVMe SSD, 2.5 Gbit/s, hosted in Vienna, Austria
It’s currently running on a KVM, so you might run into the occasional CPU spike. Once the community grows, I’ll upgrade back to a proper beefy rig.
Update 2025: Given the massive leaps in chatbots lately, I’m slowly working on integrating one into the game. From day one, I wanted this to be heavily PvE-focused, and starting with Alpha 5 in Q1 '25, you’ll start seeing some sneaky little bots popping up. They’ll learn, adapt, and, hopefully, get on your nerves soon enough.
Update 2026: Completely rewritten in Symfony 8.1 with PHP 8.5, PostgreSQL, and UX Turbo! Hooked up chatbot integration for simple interactions to make the universe feel a bit more alive for PvE fans.
Built with love (and way too much caffeine) by a sci-fi nerd and random IT dork from Hamburg, Germany.
tl;dr: Long story short, I was sick and tired of the massive pay-to-win edgelords in certain other browser games. So I thought, why not just code my own, easy, right? ;)
