Playing Games with Friends - Learning Windows 8 Game Development - page 182

games. When people want to play, they consult the master server for all of the games
they can join and proceed to select one from that list. The master server itself doesn't
handle any gameplay duties; instead the clients connect directly to the host using the
information provided by the master server.
In some cases you may not have an internet connection, so what do you do then?
Depending on the system the game is running on, you have different options. If you
are running on a local network, you can broadcast messages over the network ask-
ing for the other clients to respond. Alternatively, the game can ask the player to
enter the IP address or computer name of the host and try to connect directly. Some
systems even provide ways to connect using infrared or Bluetooth , allowing the op-
erating system to handle the device connection for the game. Windows 8 offers a
version of the latter option using the PeerFinder and Proximity APIs . Using these
APIs, Windows 8 games can find nearby Bluetooth or Wi-Fi Direct devices running
the game and connect at the request of the player.
Note
Wi-Fi Direct is a technology that allows devices to connect using Wi-Fi without
requiring an access point. This means that devices can connect directly to each
other in a manner similar to Bluetooth, while taking advantage of the high speeds
of modern Wi-Fi.
Tap technologies allow players with compatible devices to just tap their devices to-
gether and set up a game with even less effort by using the Proximity API in Win-
dows 8. If you're looking to set up a master server to handle this, you can easily use
HTTP, with a web server and database on the other end.
The other thing you need to consider in this stage is the experience. Do you want
the player to be able to join games in progress? How does this impact the gameplay
stage? One commonly used option is the game lobby . This applies to both the cli-
ent/server and peer-to-peer games, where the players can only join a game at the
start of the match and for a period of time they sit in a lobby where they can chat
while they wait. This is useful for a number of reasons. Players can start to join as
soon as the game is created, even before the host has finished configuring the game
parameters (often seen in RTS games), or maybe the game needs some more play-