🏫 GIETUVerse – Real-Time Virtual Campus Metaverse (Spring Boot, WebSockets (STOMP), React, PostgreSQL) GIETUVerse is a real-time 2D virtual campus simulation of GIET University that enables users to explore the environment as live avatars and communicate through proximity-based private chat. I built this project to move beyond theory and gain practical understanding of WebSocket protocols, real-time synchronization, and event-driven system design. The system uses Spring Boot WebSockets with the STOMP messaging protocol to establish persistent bidirectional communication between clients and server. Each connected user appears as a live entity on the campus map, with movement controlled via keyboard input. When a user moves, updated coordinates are sent to the backend and instantly broadcast to all subscribed clients, ensuring synchronized spatial awareness across sessions. The platform also supports proximity-based private messaging. When two users come within a defined spatial radius (~50 units), the server enables direct messaging channels. User sessions are uniquely mapped via email identifiers to route private messages to the correct WebSocket connection, demonstrating targeted messaging and real-time presence tracking patterns used in multiplayer and collaborative systems. The frontend was built in React to render live positional updates, while the backend is deployed on Render and the frontend on Netlify with Neon serverless PostgreSQL. This distributed deployment mirrors modern cloud architectures and supports scalable real-time interaction. Key Highlights: Real-time state sync • Broadcast & private messaging • Spatial chat logic • Event-driven architecture