Introduction to WebSockets for Game Developers - HTML5 Game Development Insights - page 185

for (var arg in args) {
// Don't overwrite the message type
if (arg != "type")
msg[arg] = args[arg];
};
//return JSON.stringify(msg);
return BISON.encode(msg);
};

BiSON is similar in many respects to BSON and MessagePack; BiSON is more lightweight than JSON and can
more efficiently store types. However, BiSON lacks the mindshare of BSON and MessagePack. You can read more
about BiSON on its project page at https://github.com/BonsaiDen/BiSON.js .

Off-the-Shelf Solutions and WebSocket-likeProducts
When creating a game, you are not limited to pure WebSockets or a solution like Socket.io . There are several
technologies either similar to or based on WebSockets that can be used to create games.

Firebase
Firebase ( www.firebase.com ) provides a real-time API for syncing and accessing data. Firebase has client libraries
and bindings for most mobile and web platforms, while offering the option of a Representational state transfer (REST)
API if your favorite language or framework is not supported. Firebase is somewhat like WebSockets plus a data store
wrapped up in the same package.
Firebase stores data in a JSON-like format, and it allows you to access the data through one of several options:

• A client library

• Vanilla REST calls

• A browser

Everything that you store is addressable by its object path. For instance, consider a player object stored at the root
http://MyGame.firebaseIO-demo.com and represented by the following code:

ud7h3if: {
name: 'John',
vitals: {
health: 80,
attack: 20,
weapons: ['pistol', 'rifle', 'machete']
}
}

You could display the object by navigating to http://MyGame.firebaseIO-demo.com/ud7h3if , or perhaps
only the vitals or weapons by going to http://MyGame.firebaseIO-demo.com/ud7h3if/vitals or
http://MyGame.firebaseIO-demo.com/ud7h3if/vitals/weapons , respectively.