advanced practice · system design prompt
Realtime game server
Design the server for a 1v1 realtime game (chess clock, but with sub-100ms moves). Cover tick rate, authoritative state, and cheat resistance.
The mechanism
Realtime game servers run a tight loop over a shared world state. The server is the source of truth; the client predicts what will happen to hide latency, then corrects itself when the server disagrees.
Expected evidence
Tick loop + the input → state-update → broadcast cycle + one cheat mitigation.
Try this drill in the practice workspace →
Hints when you need them
- Clients predict; the server reconciles.
- Never trust client-reported timestamps.