🎬 MovieStripes — Movie Barcode Puzzle

Guess the movie from its unique barcode image — each barcode is generated from the frames of the movie, turning colors and pacing into a single visual strip.

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Overview

MovieStripes is a daily online puzzle game where players guess a movie from its barcode.
The backend is built with a serverless AWS architecture for speed, scalability, and low cost.

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Architecture

flowchart TD
    A[Player's Browser] -->|HTTP GET /api/puzzle/today| B[API Gateway]
    B --> C[Lambda Function: Fetch Puzzle]
    C --> D[(AWS RDS - PostgreSQL)]
    C --> E[(AWS S3 - Barcode Images)]
    F[Admin CLI Script] -->|Upload Images + DB Entry| E
    F --> D

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Components:

• AWS S3 — Stores static barcode images and hosts the frontend.
• AWS RDS (PostgreSQL) — Stores movie metadata, puzzle schedule, and gameplay data.
• AWS Lambda — Handles API requests, database queries, and caching.
• API Gateway — Routes requests from the frontend to the Lambda backend.
• Admin CLI — Uploads new puzzles (barcode images + DB entry) from your local machine.

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Features

• Daily Puzzle — One movie per day for all players.
• Fast Loading — Caching reduces load time from 1.8s → 350ms.
• Serverless — Low cost and automatically scales with player traffic.
• PostgreSQL-backed — Reliable storage for puzzles and movie data.
• S3 Static Hosting — Barcodes and frontend served directly from S3.

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Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Frontend	React.js
Backend	AWS Lambda (running Node.js code)
Database	AWS RDS (PostgreSQL)
Storage	AWS S3
API Routing	AWS API Gateway
Infrastructure	Serverless Framework

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Setup & Installation

1️⃣ Clone the Repo

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/moviestripes.git
cd moviestripes

2️⃣ Create the RDS Database

• Create a PostgreSQL RDS instance (public or private).
• Load your schema:

psql -h <RDS_ENDPOINT> -U <USERNAME> -d <DB_NAME> -f schema.sql

3️⃣ Create the S3 Buckets

• Bucket 1: moviestripes-images (private or public)
• Bucket 2: moviestripes-frontend (public for hosting)

Upload frontend files:

aws s3 sync ./frontend s3://moviestripes-frontend --delete

4️⃣ Deploy the Lambda API

serverless deploy

5️⃣ Configure Environment Variables

In AWS Lambda or serverless.yml:

DB_HOST=<RDS_ENDPOINT>
DB_USER=<USERNAME>
DB_PASS=<PASSWORD>
DB_NAME=<DB_NAME>
S3_BUCKET=<moviestripes-images>

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Admin Workflow: Adding a New Puzzle

Run the admin CLI:

python upload_puzzle.py --title "Inception" --year 2010 --genre "Sci-Fi" --director "Christopher Nolan" --barcode ./barcodes/inception.png

This script:

1. Uploads the barcode image to S3.
2. Inserts metadata into the RDS database.
3. Schedules it for a future puzzle date.

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upload_puzzle.py is tracked under the backend subfolder

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Performance

• API caching reduced average puzzle load time:

  • Before: 1.8 seconds
  • After: 350 milliseconds

• Reduced DB query load by 70% via cache hits.

• Enabled near-instant puzzle loading for repeat visits.

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Future Roadmap

• Add multiplayer leaderboard.
• Add difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard).
• Support user-submitted barcodes.
• Progressive Web App (PWA) offline mode.

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License

MIT License © 2025 Krish Patel

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Acknowledgments

Inspired by the MovieBarCodeGenerator project by mlaidly on GitHub.