🎮 The Big Three

What are the three games that define you as a gamer?

📋 For Evaluators: Admin credentials, database setup, and RAWG API demo key are provided in the Setup & Running Locally section below.

The Big Three is a community-driven ASP.NET Core web application where gamers curate and share their ultimate three-game collections — the games that shaped them, defined them, or simply brought them the most joy. Discover what others have chosen, give stars to collections you love, and leave your mark on the community.

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📸 Screenshots

Community Hub	Collection Details

Player Profile	Game Info Modal

Stats Page	Admin Panel

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🎬 Demo Video

A full walkthrough of The Big Three — features, RAWG API integration, Admin panel, and more.

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✨ Features

🏠 Community Hub

• Browse all curated collections in a beautiful card-based layout
• Search by collection title or curator name
• Filter by game genre
• Sort by newest or most starred
• Pagination for easy browsing

📚 Collections

• Every registered user can create exactly one "Big Three" collection — their three defining games
• Each game slot includes a title, cover image, genre, and personal description
• Full edit and delete functionality for your own collection
• Star/unstar collections from other curators

🎮 RAWG API Integration

• Autocomplete — start typing a game title in the Add/Edit form and get live suggestions from the RAWG database, complete with cover thumbnails, release year, and rating
• Game Details Modal — click any game cover on a collection page to open a cinematic modal showing Metacritic score, release date, developer, platforms, genres, and a full screenshot gallery
• Screenshot Lightbox — click any screenshot to view it full size with prev/next navigation
• Graceful degradation — the app works fully without an API key; RAWG features are silently hidden

👤 User Profiles

• Public profile pages for every user — viewable by anyone
• Private dashboard showing your own collection, starred collections, rank, and stats
• Custom avatar via URL
• Collector Rank system based on stars earned

🏆 Rank System

Stars Earned	Rank
100+	🥇 Legendary Collector
30+	🌟 Superstar Collector
10+	🔥 Popular Collector
5+	⬆️ Rising Star
1+	🌱 Novice Collector
0	👋 Newcomer

📊 Stats & Leaderboard

• Community-wide statistics: total collections, members, stars, comments
• Top 3 collections podium
• Most popular genres bar chart
• Top 10 collectors and commenters leaderboard

💬 Comments

• Leave comments on any collection
• Delete your own comments
• Admins can moderate all comments

🛡️ Admin Panel

• Full user management: view, search, delete users
• Promote users to Administrator or demote them back to User
• Collection management: view and delete any collection
• Admin dashboard with community overview

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🏗️ Architecture

The project follows a clean N-Tier architecture split across 7 projects:

TheBigThree/                        ← ASP.NET Core Web (MVC)
├── TheBigThree.Data/               ← DbContext, Migrations, Repository
├── TheBigThree.Data.Models/        ← Entity classes
├── TheBigThree.GCommon/            ← Shared helpers (RankHelper)
├── TheBigThree.Services/           ← Service implementations
├── TheBigThree.Services.Core/      ← Service interfaces, IRepository<T>
├── TheBigThree.Web.ViewModels/     ← ViewModels for all views
└── TheBigThree.Tests/              ← NUnit unit tests

Layers

Layer	Project	Responsibility
Presentation	TheBigThree	Controllers, Views, Areas, wwwroot
Application	TheBigThree.Services	Business logic, service implementations
Contracts	TheBigThree.Services.Core	Interfaces, Repository abstraction
Data	TheBigThree.Data	EF Core DbContext, migrations, generic repository
Domain	TheBigThree.Data.Models	Entity classes (Collection, Game, Genre, Like, Comment, ApplicationUser)
Shared	TheBigThree.GCommon	Cross-cutting helpers (RankHelper)
ViewModels	TheBigThree.Web.ViewModels	Data transfer objects for views

Generic Repository Pattern

All data access goes through IRepository<T>:

public interface IRepository<T>
{
    Task<T?> GetByIdAsync(int id);
    Task<IEnumerable<T>> GetAllAsync();
    Task AddAsync(T entity);
    Task UpdateAsync(T entity);
    Task DeleteAsync(int id);
    Task SaveChangesAsync();
    IQueryable<T> All();
}

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🗄️ Entity Models

ApplicationUser  ──────────────────────────────────────────
    │ Id, UserName, Email, AvatarUrl, CreatedOn            │
    │                                                       │
    ├──< Collection >──────────────────────────────────────┤
    │       Id, Title, TotalStars, CreatedOn, UserId        │
    │             │                                         │
    │             ├──< Game >────────────────────────────── │
    │             │       Id, Title, ImageUrl,              │
    │             │       Description, GenreId              │
    │             │             │                           │
    │             │             └──< Genre >                │
    │             │                   Id, Name              │
    │             │                                         │
    │             └──< Comment >──────────────────────────  │
    │                     Id, Content, CreatedOn,           │
    │                     UserId, CollectionId              │
    │                                                       │
    └──< Like >─────────────────────────────────────────── ─┘
            UserId (PK), CollectionId (PK)
            [Many-to-Many junction table]

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🔧 Services

Service	Responsibilities
CollectionService	CRUD for collections, search, filter, pagination, star system
CommentService	Add and delete comments with authorization checks
LikeService	Star/unstar collections, fetch starred collections
ProfileService	User profile data, own collection preview, public profiles
StatsService	Community statistics, top collections, leaderboard data
AdminService	User and collection management, promote/demote roles
RawgService	RAWG API integration — game search and detail fetching

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✅ Validation

Server-Side

• All form inputs validated with Data Annotations
• [Required], [StringLength], [RegularExpression] on ViewModels
• Custom business logic validation in services (e.g., one collection per user)
• Authorization checks in service layer (not just controller)
• AntiForgeryToken on all POST forms

Client-Side

• jQuery Unobtrusive Validation on all forms
• Inline error messages per field

Database Level

• Required fields enforced at schema level
• Foreign key constraints
• Composite primary key on Likes (UserId + CollectionId)

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🌱 Seeded Data

The application seeds the following on first run:

• 2 roles: User, Administrator
• 7 users including 1 admin (CommanderShepard)
• 19 genres (Action, RPG, Horror, Strategy, etc.)
• 7 collections with 3 games each, complete with cover images

Admin credentials for testing:

Username: CommanderShepard
Email:    shepard@normandy.com
Password: Spectre123!

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🔐 Security

Threat	Mitigation
SQL Injection	EF Core parameterized queries — no raw SQL
XSS	Razor auto-encodes all output; HTML tags escaped
CSRF	[AutoValidateAntiforgeryToken] globally applied
Unauthorized access	[Authorize] on all controllers; service-layer ownership checks
Account lockout	3 failed attempts triggers 5-minute lockout
Secure cookies	HttpOnly, SecurePolicy.Always, SameSite.Strict
Parameter tampering	Ownership verified server-side before any mutation

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🎮 RAWG API Setup

The Big Three integrates with the RAWG Video Games Database API to power:

• Game autocomplete when adding/editing a collection
• Game details modal with Metacritic scores, platforms, developers, and screenshots

Getting Your API Key

1. Create a free account at rawg.io
2. Go to rawg.io/apidocs and register your app
3. Copy your API key

Configuring the Key (User Secrets — Recommended)

The API key is stored using ASP.NET User Secrets and is never committed to the repository.

From the project root (where TheBigThree.csproj lives):

dotnet user-secrets set "RawgApi:ApiKey" "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" --project TheBigThree.csproj

Note: Without an API key, the application works fully — RAWG features (autocomplete and game details modal) are silently disabled. No errors will occur.

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🚀 Setup & Running Locally

Prerequisites

• .NET 8 SDK
• Visual Studio 2022 or later
• SQL Server LocalDB (included with Visual Studio)

Steps

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/krasimir-paunov/TheBigThree.git
cd TheBigThree

2. Open in Visual Studio

   • Open TheBigThree.sln

3. Configure the database connection string

   Open appsettings.json and update the connection string to match your local SQL Server instance:

   {
     "ConnectionStrings": {
       "DefaultConnection": "Server=(localdb)\\mssqllocaldb;Database=TheBigThreeDb;Trusted_Connection=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=true"
     }
   }

   Note: If you are using a named SQL Server instance instead of LocalDB, replace (localdb)\\mssqllocaldb with your server name, for example Server=.\\SQLEXPRESS or Server=YOUR_PC_NAME\\SQLEXPRESS.

4. Apply migrations and seed the database

   • In Package Manager Console, set Default Project to TheBigThree.Data
   • Run:

Update-Database

5. (Optional) Configure RAWG API

   A demo key has been provided for evaluation purposes:

   dotnet user-secrets set "RawgApi:ApiKey" "1114097eb59340f19cf02a957f4bd3e8" --project TheBigThree.csproj

Run this command in the Developer PowerShell terminal inside Visual Studio (View → Terminal), from the solution root folder.

Important: After setting the key, fully restart the application (Stop + F5) for the changes to take effect.

This demo key was created specifically for academic project evaluation. For your own key, register a free account at rawg.io.

6. Run the application

   • Press F5 or Ctrl+F5 in Visual Studio
   • Navigate to https://localhost:{port}

7. Login with the seeded admin account

Username: CommanderShepard
Password: Spectre123!

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🧪 Unit Tests

The project includes 97 unit tests across 10 test classes, using NUnit, Moq, and MockQueryable.Moq, with 73.8% service layer coverage.

TheBigThree.Tests/
├── Services/
│   ├── CollectionServiceTests.cs    (19 tests)
│   ├── CommentServiceTests.cs       (10 tests)
│   ├── LikeServiceTests.cs          (11 tests)
│   ├── ProfileServiceTests.cs       (10 tests)
│   ├── AdminServiceTests.cs         (11 tests)
│   └── StatsServiceTests.cs         (7 tests)
└── Controllers/
    ├── HomeControllerTests.cs       (5 tests)
    ├── StatsControllerTests.cs      (3 tests)
    ├── LeaderboardControllerTests.cs (3 tests)
    └── CollectionControllerTests.cs (18 tests)

Running Tests

In Visual Studio: Test → Run All Tests

Or via CLI:

dotnet test

Coverage Areas

Services (73.8% line coverage)

• Collection CRUD and business rules (one per user)
• Comment add/delete with authorization and admin bypass
• Like/unlike with duplicate prevention and star decrement
• Profile and public profile data loading
• Admin promote/demote/delete operations
• Community stats and leaderboard ordering

Controllers

• Action return types (ViewResult, RedirectToActionResult)
• Correct view model passing
• Redirect targets on not-found and error scenarios
• Service delegation verification
• Authenticated user context mocking
• Exception handling branches (Star/RemoveStar)

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🌐 Deployment

The application is designed to be deployable to Microsoft Azure (App Service + Azure SQL). Deployment instructions will be added if a public hosting URL becomes available.

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📁 Project Structure

TheBigThree/
├── Areas/
│   ├── Admin/                  ← Admin area (Dashboard, Users, Collections)
│   └── Identity/               ← Scaffolded Identity pages (Login, Register, Manage)
├── Controllers/                ← Main app controllers
├── Views/                      ← Razor views per controller
├── wwwroot/
│   ├── css/                    ← Per-page CSS files + site.css
│   ├── js/                     ← site.js, hub.js, rawg.js, public-profile.js
│   └── images/
│       ├── seed/               ← Seeded game cover images
│       └── backgrounds/        ← Page background textures
├── TheBigThree.Data/
│   ├── TheBigThreeDbContext.cs
│   ├── Migrations/
│   └── Repository.cs
├── TheBigThree.Data.Models/
│   ├── ApplicationUser.cs
│   ├── Collection.cs
│   ├── Game.cs
│   ├── Genre.cs
│   ├── Like.cs
│   └── Comment.cs
├── TheBigThree.Services/       ← Service implementations
├── TheBigThree.Services.Core/  ← Interfaces + IRepository<T>
├── TheBigThree.Web.ViewModels/ ← ViewModels
├── TheBigThree.GCommon/        ← RankHelper
└── TheBigThree.Tests/          ← NUnit tests

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Technology	Version	Purpose
ASP.NET Core MVC	8.0	Web framework
Entity Framework Core	8.0	ORM / data access
ASP.NET Identity	8.0	Authentication & authorization
SQL Server LocalDB	Latest	Database
Bootstrap	5.3	UI framework
Bootstrap Icons	1.11	Icon library
NUnit	3.x	Unit testing
Moq	4.x	Mocking
MockQueryable.Moq	7.0	IQueryable mocking
RAWG API	v1	Game database

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