Suggestions about multiplayer game development on iOS and Android? [closed]

Question

I'm working on a simple game to experience the multiplayer game development on mobile plaforms especially on Android and iOS. I'm now planning network/multiplayer side of the game and need some advice.

Firstly i think about Google App Engine as the server side of the game. But i learned that app engine cannot connect directly to clients. So updates of the users cannot be send to others directly with this method. Then i started to think about serving the game on one of the gamers of the current session. But of course some of the features will be on the server. You think it is a good idea?

Second, I'm looking for a protocol to communicate iOS and Android. YAML and JSON are the ones i looked so far.

Any other suggestions about multiplayer game development would be appreciated. Thanks...

Halvorsen

Answer 1

Free solutions:

1. Market leader: http://openfeint.com/developers (>40,000,000 Users)
2. Scoreloop: http://www.scoreloop.com/

Out of the box solutions:

1. Photon by Exit Games: http://www.exitgames.com/
2. Elektrotank http://www.electrotank.com/
3. Smartfox: http://www.smartfoxserver.com/

It would be pretty pointless to develop a solution on your own (assuming you want to earn money).

Wilde

Answer 2

While this thread is quite old, it seems like interest in multiplayer is growing, so I hope this answer will be relevant.

Disclosure: I work at Nextpeer. We provide hosting and client SDK aimed at casual mobile games seeking to implement a multiplayer option, so I'd like to add our solution to the mix. We take care of the server-side, of player-to-player communication, matchmaking, and the social aspect (we offer Facebook integration). And we aim for easy integration. Our SDK is available for both Android in iOS, as a native SDK and as a Unity plugin.

Westmorland

Answer 3

I too evaluated OpenFeint and Scoreloop. I'm particularly impressed with Open Feint's rich feature set. RIM acquired ScoreLoop in June so I'm not sure how long they'd support non-BlackBerry platforms. I found that both these SDKs do not provide multiplayer support. If multiplayer social game development is what you are talking about, Skiller seems to be a good option.

Biome

Answer 4

I have tried to develop multiplayer game and checked SmartFox, Exit Games, Skiller and AndEngine.

From my understanding AndEngine (download: http://www.andengine.org/ ) works great for close proximity multiplayer (on the same WiFi network), but i was trying to create long distance multiplayer experience. Smartfox and Exit Games required me to get my own server and server maintenance, and unfortunately it is out of my budget.

Skiller (download: http://www.skiller-games.com/ ) host their own service, so i downloaded the SDK and checked it out. After playing with their SDK it seems to have what i needed and i was able to create the multiplayer experience i was looking for. So i have chosen Skiller for my project and it works great.

Hope i have helped.

Nitrile

AFAIK Skiller doesn't support iOS as of September 2013. – Handbreadth

Answer 5

I don't think developing your own game engine is a good idea. If anything, you will end up re-inventing the wheel. You might want to look at Skiler as well. It's free, provides an easy to use SDK for building single and multi-player Android games. They publish a TicTacToe multiplayer game which provides a good indication of the platform's capabilities.

Biome

Answer 6

As mentioned by others, SmartFox, Exit Games, Skiller and AndEngine are all good options for the networking/engine portion.

OpenFeint and Scoreloop, as well as Swarm are all good options for the user/leaderboard/achievements system.

Lizettelizotte

You should openly declare your affiliation; currently this smacks of astroturfing, and is gathering spam flags. – Damselfly