multiplayer capabilities with AIR gaming SDK

[codeBeastAdobe]

Hi. No too sure if this is the right place but multiplayer potential is one of the most important things in social gaming and so I suppose it does exist but when I google it for AIR I dont come up with a lot. Multiplayer for IOS comes up interestingly enough but I dont target that platform.

Does anybody know anything about this and if it is easy or not to implement. EASY is a silly word - lets say I am not the best prgm in the world - could I implement multiplayer in a trivia/quiz app for example?

Cheers in advance

[kglad · Accepted solution]

generally, it's not that easy but for what you're describing it should be very easy.  here's an excerpt from

Flash Game Development: In a Social, Mobile and 3D World

(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1435460200/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p14_d2_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=...)

Peer-to-peer games

Since Flash Player 10, you can create multiplayer games without the need of an intermediary server to facilitate player communication.  The Flash Player can use a protocol (Adobe's Real-Time Media Flow Protocol) that allows direct peer-to-peer communication.

Instead of using server-side code to handle the game logic and coordinate game state among players, each peer in the network handles their own game logic and game state and communicates that directly to their peers and each peer updates their game state based on the data received from others.

To use peer-to-peer networking each peer must connect with an Adobe server.  Peer-to-peer communication does not go through that server (or it that would not be peer-to-peer) but peers must stay connected with the Adobe server in order to communicate with each other.

To communicate with the Adobe server you should use your own server URL and developer key. That URL and key can be obtained at http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=cirrus.

Below is a simple tic-tac-toe game that uses Adobe's peer-to-peer networking to pair-up players. The NetConnection class is used to establish a connection to the Adobe server while the NetGroup class is used for peer-to-peer communication.

I used only a small part of the NetGroup methods for the tic-tac-toe game but there are more available if you are sharing data among many users and/or sharing large amounts of data.

  The tic-tac-toe game is in support files/Chapter 11/multiplayer and is extensively commented.

[sinious]

In short, how familiar with general communication even between flash and server side scripts? Do you know any server-side scripting of any kind?

A trivia game would, well here goes, be trivial to make in AIR. Easily handled. It's hard to point you in the right direction without knowing what you're comfortable with however. For instance, for performance reasons, if it's a commercial product I'd take Kglad's advice on peer to peer communication to cut down on network activity between your server and players. However this also invites injection and takes a lot more work to secure as well as depending on the game, might be overkill.

[codeBeastAdobe]

Hi there.

It is going to be commercial but for students to learn English ie: I don't have any qualms about injection although somewhere down the line I will take a look at it. I would like to get it up and running "quickly" ie: test in on a few students just to see if they like it.

Basically it's all about getting "social" modules integrated into my e-learning virtual world implementing gamification wherever I can. I have seen that there are some "wrappers" out there to make this kind of thing easier like cocoon p2p etc... BUT I have no experience with this kind of thing.

I usually have a programmer to help me BUT I do all the background reading and the coder tries to implement the code.

HOWEVER, as of this week I'll be on my own and I have to look at alternatives.

It's funny that you just posted as I wrote your name down this morning on my "to contact" list.

I'll PM you.

Cheers

I'll give KGlad's answer a "correct" as he put me on the right road.