Multiplayer Plugin for ImpactJS

impactjs-multiplay is going to be a multiplayer framework for the impactjs javascript game engine using faye.

Who should use this repo?

Anybody with a strong understanding of both impactjs and multilayer networking. I recommended taking a look at the impactjs docs, and this article on multilayer networking by Valve.

A note about the current state of impactjs-multiplay

This is a very early version of what I hope to build into a plugin. A full package will be available in the future, but for now this repo is for learning purposes only / proof of concept. If you study the code you should be able to figure out whats actually going on, and can begin from there.

Alright, I'm ready

My current implementation uses faye to distribute entity properties from player to player. Normally game logic would be done on the server, but impactjs has trouble running without a window object under nodejs. Instead, a host player acts as a listen server, and broadcasts entity properties through faye. Still with me?

Say that again?

So heres a little rundown of how most multiplayer games work.

Player inputs controls
Controls are sent to server
Server does calculations including collision, outcome
Server sends entity updates back to player
Player renders the outcome of the sent controls

Now, since impactjs can not run with nodejs, we lose all the great benefits of the framework if we were to program the game logic server side. So instead, we actually assign a host to handle game logic. You would call that player a host.

So instead, it looks something like this.