The intention of this book is to provide you with information about developing network games. It is broken down into three core areas:
Design. Discussions of the initial stages of a game project and the decisions that need to be taken in order to produce an outline.
Design and development. The creation process. How to choose the technologies and underlying infrastructure to implement the design.
Development. The nuts and bolts of game creation. Practically a book in itself, this section looks at the basics of testing and programming network games.
The purpose of covering the topics in this way is simple: It guides you on a journey that covers all fundamental aspects of network game creation. At each step, there are examples of real games and solutions that have been developed to solve their various problems.
The design area looks at what sets network game development apart from single-player and multi-player offline game development. The chapters cover the material as completely as possible, and comprise:
This first chapter describes the challenges that game developers seeking to unleash the power of network-enabled multi-player gaming might face. This includes a brief look at the types of networking and hardware available, as well as the platform considerations.
The second chapter picks up where the first one leaves off, looking at the other side of the discussion: the game itself. While this will be, in many ways, constrained by the availability of networking technology on the chosen platform, you will still need a good understanding of the underlying styles of network games (from text-based multi-user dungeons to virtual worlds) before being able to choose the best technology for your game.
Every network game is built up of components in a layered fashion, from the front-end to the server. In between are layers that are consistent with the available technology and type of game chosen. The eventual implementation will depend on factors such as the user (player) platform, game environment update model, and type of networking used.
Having covered all the underlying design aspects, this chapter pulls them all together to compare the various possible game types to establish the differences and similarities between them. The general idea is to impress upon the reader the need for a best-fit approach to selecting the game type and supporting technology.
The design and development section concentrates on ways that the design aspects and development aspects of game creation come together. The reason for grouping these two aspects is that they have to work together to produce the final result; design considerations have an impact on the development, and vice versa.
The first of the design-and-development chapters outlines the development tasks for turn-by-turn games—from e-mail-based to Web-based online games—highlighting the particular differences from other game models. Of particular interest are discussions of the revenue models used to finance the game and a case study of Project Rockstar, a fairly successful Web-based online game.
As a contrast to the previous chapter, this chapter highlights the particular issues relating to real-time network game development and how the design can influence the success of the eventual implementation. Again, there are case studies, this time of two massively multi-player online role-playing games, that illustrate the various hurdles that must be overcome in designing and developing the game.
This chapter deals with the issues raised in Chapters 5 and 6, giving causes of, and solutions for, most of the major networking headaches that can plague online game development. As with other chapters in this key section, the solutions are part design and part development oriented, and can be implemented almost immediately.
The more popular a game becomes, the more likely it will be that cheats will try to circumvent the game logic for their own ends. This chapter seeks to provide a reasonably complete analysis of where the possible cheats will occur (hardware and software hacks), as well as ways to plug the gaps in the game design and development that make cheating possible.
The last section of the book covers purely development topics—where the developers have a direct responsibility to see that the design is implemented correctly with respect to the various features that the final game should have.
The penultimate chapter deals with testing the network, logic, and game-play aspects of the game using various hardware and software solutions. Various advanced techniques are covered, showing how maximum test coverage can be obtained for minimum effort by reusing AI code, using prediction and test data sets, and using traditional testing techniques—all implemented in advanced solutions.
Finally, this last chapter of the book covers network programming, from TCP to datagrams to socket programming, as well as scheduling from both the client and server sides of the game. Attention is also paid to using off-the-shelf solutions to speed up development, whilst keeping security and scalability as high as possible. There are plenty of coded examples to illustrate the principles under discussion.
Using all of the aforementioned knowledge, as well as traditional game-development skills, you will be well equipped to create a multi-player network game—be it a Web-based game, a turn-by-turn combat simulation, or a full-on first-person shooter with advanced networking support.
One thing to remember: Network game creation is not just about adding network support to an existing single-player game. Rather, it is about creating a network game from the ground up—hence the emphasis in this book on both design and development aspects. If this principle is followed, then the game stands a good chance of success, as long as it ticks all the relevant boxes. With that in mind, let the fun commence!