The server took me one week. The client took another. Phaser 3 + React 19 + Vite. I know there are magic numbers, TODO comments, and obviously cleaner ways to write half of it — but it runs at a steady 60 FPS on a regular laptop, and that's good enough for a side project.

This post is about how I kept the browser from dying.

1. Why Mix React and Phaser?

I first tried building the UI entirely inside Phaser. Bad idea — Phaser's UI system is painful for anything beyond a score counter. I ended up with React 19 + Tailwind CSS for menus, HUD, and leaderboard, and Phaser 3 for the game canvas.…