WidgetWheel.com

The Internet's First Live Tug Of War

Tug of War is a fast-paced, eight-way online contest where each player “pulls” by clicking or tapping their colored orb. As you repeatedly vote for your team, your slice of the central wheel grows, visually tugging the balance in your favor.

Under the hood, Tug of War is powered by a lightweight web stack: semantic HTML for structure, CSS custom properties and animations for the neon-lit styling, and vanilla JavaScript for interactivity. Real-time state synchronization comes courtesy of Firebase’s Realtime Database, so every vote is instantly broadcast to all participants without page reloads. The voting orbs, animated slices, and pulsing background are driven by simple DOM updates and CSS transitions, making performance snappy even on mobile devices.

Building Tug of War taught invaluable web-development lessons: architecting real-time multiplayer logic with minimal latency, designing a responsive UI that scales across devices, and managing CSS animations alongside dynamic DOM updates without jank. We learned how to integrate cloud-hosted data services securely, optimize event handling for both mouse and touch input, and craft a polished, neon-glow aesthetic using only web standards—proving that modern browsers can deliver truly engaging multiplayer experiences.