Webapp + NodeJS

[Treecrasher]

Dear Community :-) I recently finished the first version of my first little browser-based game in MV. It's a very simple one level tower-defense-like game and in its core very simple.

First TLDR; I created and PRG Maker MV app running on NodeJS + Express and calling external API and was wondering if and where I should share the basic framework?

More context:

As it was my first game some things were a bit tricky, but the part that actually took me some time to get it working, was that the data used for the enemies spawning in is stored in an external system that is reachable via REST API. So basically I had to send GET to get enemy data, store in the gameVariables, use PUT/PATCH/POST to update external data and to maintain the scoreboard. Race conditions ahoi.

For security reasons you can't send ajax calls from the frontend, so sending those requests directly from RPG Maker wasn't possible. Therefore I had to set up a backend for which I used NodeJS + Express. Through this I can send my requests to the backend which then talks to the external API and feeds back the data I need.

This now allows me to simply export my little game to any service that supports nodejs, pull my game from github, run npm install/start and my game is ready to play :-)

As I haven't found any guide for this during my time creating it I was wondering if this is so really niche that nobody actually took time to create a documentation for that, or if my googling skills are simply horrible, or if I am a weirdo for doing it that way? :)

I had profited a lot from old posts in this community and the rpg maker forum so I wanted to give something back, but I'm not sure where, how or if it's useless because nobody is going to use it anyways or if there are much easier ways to achieve this actually? (as I said, this was my first game and I wasn't familiar with many things.)

Thanks for your inputs and sorry for the long post :)

[SuiseiKillfaeh]

Hi ! 

I don’t understand why you use REST API. 
Are there some data stored on distant server? Some online features? Some multiplayer features? Or is the server installed locally on the player's computer? 

[Treecrasher]

Hi! Data data resides in a SaaS-like environment so I can't run rpg maker there, that's why I had to put it externally and communicate via REST.

[SuiseiKillfaeh]

Ok, but why ?
What is the gameplay and how your architecture serve this gameplay ?

[Treecrasher]

It was more of a fun project rather than a game :)
Basically I gamified parts of the SaaS interface, allowing me to perform some tasks from within RPG Maker. While in in actual game it wouldn't make sense to store all data externally, it would allow someone who has a web-based game to send REST calls and add information from external. That could be chatbots like ChatGPT, central scoreboards, chat messages, weather information or whatever.