Building Social Deduction Island: A Technical Deep Dive into AI-Powered Simulations

In the world of social deduction games, the most intriguing element is the human interaction—the deceit, the suspicion, and the collective decision-making. But what if we could simulate this with AI? Today, I'm excited to share Social Deduction Island , a 2D web-based simulation game where autonomous agents, powered by the Gemini API , engage in a high-stakes environment of survival and deceit. The Technical Stack To bring this simulation to life, we combined several powerful technologies: Frontend : React for the UI and Phaser.js for the 2D game engine. Backend : Node.js with Express and Socket.io for real-time state management. AI Engine : Google's Gemini 3.1 Flash model for agent decision-making. Styling : Tailwind CSS and Motion for a sleek, modern interface. Architecture: Client-Side AI vs. Server-Side State One of the most critical design decisions was where to run the AI logic. While the server manages the game state (timer, resource positions, agent coordinates), the AI decisio