Last semester we had to develop the game Ludo in JavaScript and HTML/CSS. That was pretty easy. Now we have to develop a backend with GWT (Java) to create a multiplayer game. Sadly, we haven’t got much information on how to develop with GWT and the exercise is quite difficult at the beginning.
At the moment I am trying to create a kind of lobby where different players can join.
My idea was to use some input fields, where the player could enter his name and join the lobby. But I don’t know how to give the other clients the information that a new player has joined.
I created an asynchronous interfaces (RPC) where a player could submit his name to the server (Like this example). This works ok. But how should I share this information? Our docent said we should use JSON to share information’s, but I don’t know how this should help in this situation.
Is there a way to send information’s to the clients? I read a lot and just find to use additional libraries as gwt-comet.
I have really now clue how I could go on. I’m thankful for every help and information!
Greetz
You have two options: push and pull.
“Pull” option:
Other players get required information when they join the lobby and/or do something else. You can also schedule to pull this information periodically (like once every 10 minutes). You can use the same RPC mechanism to get data from server to a client. “Pull” means that a client initiates the request and server responds with the information.
“Push” option:
When a new player joins, the server pushes this new data to all other players. The best solution depends on your game implementation. Comet is a good option, as Jean-Michel mentioned, but it’s more complicated and “expensive” from resources point of view. You should use this option if you need real-time status updates for your game.