A free Next.js boilerplate for your next weekend project (with built-in gamified auth)

Hey Indie Hackers,

If you are gearing up to launch a new weekend project or starting a fresh SaaS, the most annoying part is always the initial setup. You want to get straight to building your core product, but you end up losing the entire first day wiring up Firebase, styling your login screens, and figuring out how to block bot-spam so your database doesn't get filled with junk.

We built a free boilerplate specifically to solve this so you can skip the boring stuff.

What’s inside:

Next.js 14 (App Router)
A highly-polished, dark-mode TailwindCSS aesthetic
Firebase Auth (Email/Password) fully wired up
Native Gamified Security (Using react-gamified-captcha)
Why Gamified Security? When you are launching a new project, you want it to feel premium and unique right out of the gate. Standard reCAPTCHAs are boring and introduce friction. By using a 2-second gamified micro-interaction (like a simple maze) during signup, you protect your new database from bots while giving your early users a fun, memorable first impression.

Built for Speed: If you want to just see what it looks like before committing to it, we built in a "Graceful Fallback Mode." You can clone the repo and run npm run dev immediately. Even without setting up your Firebase keys, the boilerplate will load a client-side mock mode so you can test the gamified auth and see the dashboard UI instantly.

You can grab the repo to kickstart your next project here (MIT Licensed): 🔗 https://github.com/oops-games-llc/nextjs-gamified-starter

I'd love to know what you guys are building this weekend, and if having gamified bot protection out-of-the-box saves you some headache!