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Wrapping an existing game using GSDK

There are cases in which you want to wrap an existing game with a custom process that uses Multiplayer Servers Game Server SDK (GSDK). Specifically, the process created by the wrapper project integrates with GSDK and is responsible for spawning your game server executable. You may want to create this wrapper for one of the following reasons:

  • you already have an existing game (or building a new one) and you want to try Multiplayer Servers service with the minimum possible effort
  • you want to evaluate the MPS platform (in this case you may also see our OpenArena sample)

This sample and corresponding technique is NOT recommended for use in production but only for evaluation/development purposes. Proper integration of your game server with the GSDK is highly recommended.

The samples require .NET Core 3.1 SDK, you can download it here. Usage of Visual Studio Code is also highly recommended.

Wrapping an existing game server using the wrapper app

To get started, you can find two .NET Core projects in the current folder.

  • wrapper is a .NET Core console application that acts as a wrapper for your game server and integrates with GSDK using the latest Nuget package
  • fakegame is a .NET Core console application. It's meant as literally a fake game, it just starts ASP.NET Core Web Server Kestrel that listens to TCP port 80. It's meant to simulate a game server that has absolutely zero knowledge of GSDK. You can use it if you don't have a game server of your own. It has two GET routes we can use, /hello for getting a simple response and /hello/terminate that can terminate the server.

Building the wrapper

To build the wrapper app you should use the following .NET Core CLI command from inside the wrapper directory:

dotnet publish --self-contained -r win-x64 /p:PublishSingleFile=true /p:PublishTrimmed=true

The wrapper executable (as well as its debugging symbols) will be published into wrapper\bin\Debug\netcoreapp3.1\win-x64\publish directory. Next step would be to build your game server executable and package it along the wrapper output.

As mentioned, if you're just evaluating the platform or don't have a game server of your own, you can use fakegame sample. In this case, we have provided a convenient script build.ps1 that will build and package both projects (wrapper and fakegame). Script will create a drop folder with a .zip file containing the required files.

Creating the zipped game assets archive

If you are using build.ps1 script

You can use the zipped file that was created from build.ps1 script during your creation of a new MPS Build.

If PowerShell throws up an error message – File cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system, then you need to enable the build.ps1 script to run on your Windows computer. You can enable this by running the following PowerShell command in Administrative mode in advance of running build.ps1:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

If you are using your own game server

You should copy all your game server build files from wherever your wrapper executable is located (if you used the aforementioned dotnet publish command, files should be on wrapper\bin\Debug\netcoreapp3.1\win-x64\publish directory). You would need to zip the contents of this folder along with the files necessary to run your game server. This is the zip file that you will use with LocalMultiplayerAgent (if you are doing local development) and/or upload onto the MPS Service (if you need to deploy your game server on MPS service).

A common mistake new users do is that they compress the publish directory. This may create issues if you use incorrect mapping, so we highly recommend you zip the files of the publish folder instead.

Deploying on MPS

Once you create game asset archive, next step is to create a Build to deploy the game asset.

You can refer to our public documentation to upload your Build on the MPS service.

During the creation of your Build, you should upload the zipped game assets and specify build configuration such as StartGameCommand, Port, and Virtual Machine Type as below:

Build Configuration Example 1: Deploy Wrapper sample as Windows Container on Windows VM.

  • Virtual Machine OS : Windows
  • Game Serer Type : Container
  • GameStartCommand : C:\Assets\wrapper.exe -g C:\Assets\fakegame.exe arg1 arg2
    ( Replace fakegame.exe with the name of your game server executable )
  • Port Name: gameport
  • Port Type: TCP
  • Port Number: 80

Bear in mind that during the allocation (i.e. usage of RequestMultiplayerServer API) the port you will get to connect will be different than 80. This is because MPS service will create a mapping between the Azure Load Balancer (that exposes your ports to the Public internet) to the game servers running on the Azure Virtual Machines.

Build Configuration Example 2: Deploy Wrapper sample as Process on Windows VM.

  • Virtual Machine OS: Windows
  • Game Serer Type : Process
  • GameStartCommand : wrapper.exe -g fakegame.exe arg1 arg2
  • Port Name: gameport
  • Port Type: TCP

In this example, you don't need to specify Port Number. Once game server is running, port number will be assigned dynamically by MPS.
This is how to grab a port number via GSDK in wrapper sample.

activeConfig = GameserverSDK.getConfigSettings();
portName = "gameport" 

if (activeConfig.TryGetValue(portName, out string listeningPortString))
{
    // ... more code here
}
else

If you replace port name in wrapper sample, make sure to change the value of portName variable above and specify updated port name in Build Configuration.

Create a Linux Build and Deploy on MPS

You can run the wrapper and the fakegame executable on a Linux Build, using Linux containers. In this case, you need to create a Linux Build and Upload it it to Azure Container Registry (ACR).

  1. Make sure you have an account on playfab.com and have enabled Multiplayer Servers
  2. Git clone this repo. You should have installed Docker
  3. On the PlayFab developer portal, you can create a new Linux Build to get the Azure Container Registry information. It will be appear in the Multiplayer page like docker login --username customervz4l34rmt7rnk --password XXXXXXX customervz4l34rmt7rnk.azurecr.io. You can also use the GetContainerRegistryCredentials API call to get the ACR credentials
  4. Replace the TAG and the ACR variables with your values
TAG="0.1"
ACR="customervz4l34rmt7rnk.azurecr.io"
docker login --username XXXXXX --password XXXXXXX ${ACR}
docker build -t ${ACR}/wrapper:${TAG} .
docker push ${ACR}/wrapper:${TAG}

You can run the above script on Windows Subsystem for Linux.

  1. Create a new MPS Build either via playfab.com or via the CreateBuildWithCustomerContainer API call. On this Build, select Linux VMs, the image:tag container image you uploaded and a single port for the game. If you are using the fakegame, you should pick 80/TCP.
  2. Wait for the Build to be deployed
  3. To allocate a server and get IP/port, you can use the MpsAllocator sample or use RequestMultiplayerServer API call. For more information you can check the documentation

Of course, you can still replace fakegame with your game server. If you choose to do so, you'll need to modify the Dockerfile appropriately.

Build Configuration Example 3: Deploy Wrapper sample as Container on Linux VM.

  • Virtual Machine OS: Linux
  • Game Serer Type : Container
  • Port Name: gameport
  • Port Type: TCP
  • Port Number: 80

Running the Wrapper locally using the LocalMultiplayerAgent

Using LocalMultiplayerAgent is highly recommended if you want to test GSDK integration on your custom game servers.
Without any cloud connection, you can test and run your game servers quickly on your local machine.

If you are using LocalMultiplayerAgent with Windows Containers you need to properly configure MultiplayerSettings.json file. You can find an example below, pay special attention to the values of LocalFilePath and StartGameCommand. Don't forget to replace fakegame.exe with the name of your game server executable.

MultiplayerSettings.json Example 1 - Running Wrapper [Windows Container] using LocalMultiplayer Agent.

...
"AssetDetails": [
    {
        "MountPath": "C:\\Assets",
        "SasTokens": null,
        "LocalFilePath": "C:\\projects\\gsdkSamples\\wrappingGsdk\\drop\\gameassets.zip"
    }
],
"StartGameCommand": "C:\\Assets\\wrapper.exe -g C:\\Assets\\fakegame.exe arg1 arg2",
...
"PortMappingsList": [
            [
                {
                    "NodePort": 56100,
                    "GamePort": {
                        "Name": "gameport",
                        "Number": 80,
                        "Protocol": "TCP"
                    }
                }
            ]
        ]

MultiplayerSettings.json Example 2 - Running Wrapper [Process] using LocalMultiplayer Agent.

...
"AssetDetails": [
    {
        "MountPath": "" // not require when you are running Wrapper as Process,
        "SasTokens": null,
        "LocalFilePath": "C:\\projects\\gsdkSamples\\wrappingGsdk\\drop\\gameassets.zip"
    }
],
"StartGameCommand": "wrapper.exe -g fakegame.exe arg1 arg2",
...
"PortMappingsList": [
            [
                {
                    "NodePort": 56100,
                    "GamePort": {
                        "Name": "gameport",
                        "Number": 80,
                        "Protocol": "TCP"
                    }
                }
            ]
        ]

You are now ready to test with LocalMultiplayerAgent! If you have configured it correctly, as soon as LocalMultiplayerAgent launches your game server, you can connect to it via curl http://localhost:56100/Hello.

Next steps

You should run the MpsAllocatorSample to allocate/list/view Builds and game servers.