Multiplayer

[collinalexbell]

As part of the Game Design book of lenses book, the first lens is Emotion.

What emotion do I want from a game built on HackMatrix? I want a feeling of Connectivity and Competence.

To generate a feeling of Connectivity, the engine must support multiplayer... players can join up to solve computer problems (programming, Linux stuff, even graphics design and asset creation).

So my current focus based on the game design book is going to be multiplayer.

[collinalexbell]

Claude's thoughts:

Milestones:

1. Networking and Communication
2. Screen Sharing
3. Player Movement Synchronization
4. Voice Chat Integration
5. Server and Party Management

Tasks:

Networking and Communication:

• Choose a networking library for low-level network communication (e.g., Boost.Asio, ENet)
• Implement client-server architecture for connecting players
• Design and implement a protocol for exchanging messages between clients and the server
• Handle connection establishment, disconnection, and error handling

Screen Sharing:

• Research and select a library for capturing and encoding screen content (e.g., FFmpeg, libVNC)
• Implement screen capturing and encoding on the client-side
• Design a protocol for transmitting screen updates to other players
• Implement screen decoding and rendering on the receiving clients
• Optimize screen sharing for performance and bandwidth efficiency

Player Movement Synchronization:

• Design a protocol for synchronizing player movements across clients
• Implement client-side prediction and server-side reconciliation for smooth player movement
• Handle latency compensation and interpolation to ensure consistent player positions
• Implement collision detection and resolution for player interactions

Voice Chat Integration:

• Choose a voice chat library or service (e.g., Mumble, Discord API, WebRTC)
• Integrate the voice chat functionality into your game engine
• Implement voice chat channels or proximity-based voice communication
• Handle voice encoding, transmission, and decoding
• Ensure low-latency and high-quality voice communication

Server and Party Management:

• Design and implement a server browser or matchmaking system
• Create a party system for players to join and invite others
• Implement server creation and configuration options
• Handle player authentication and authorization
• Provide tools for server administrators to manage players and settings

Libraries and Off-the-Shelf Code:

Networking: Boost.Asio, ENet
Screen Sharing: FFmpeg, libVNC
Voice Chat: Mumble, Discord API, WebRTC
Serialization: Protocol Buffers, FlatBuffers
Compression: zlib, LZ4
Encryption: OpenSSL, libsodium
Logging: spdlog, Boost.Log
Testing: Google Test, Catch2

[collinalexbell]

Me: First, the networking library. I'm currently using ZMQ for other purposes. Is that too high level? What are the tradeoffs vs using the other ones you suggested?

Claude:

[collinalexbell]

Ok. I'm choosing ENet. Reddit says it is battle tested.

I'm keeping a design doc of decisions on the new multiplayer branch: https://github.com/collinalexbell/HackMatrix/tree/multiplayer

[collinalexbell]

I asked claude to generate Client, Server, and Gui classes:

737a34e

[collinalexbell]

HackMatrix already has a preexisting Imgui class with tabs that Claude didn't know about. I had claude rewrite the Gui class so that it can plug into the engineGui class.

b55f95e

[collinalexbell]

Barebones GUI works. Connect button still needs something to call, but that will be implemented in the Client class. I also thing the GUI needs an option to make a particular instance into a server.

7d6c195

[collinalexbell]

Got a used laptop, installed Arch. HackMatrix is the only WM installed 😆.

Test environment all set up to start hacking on multiplayer in earnest. Lfg

[collinalexbell]

Client and Server compile now. Had to add enet impl to engine.cpp.

5e8d151

[collinalexbell]

Client and Server basis connection works.

Server starts (no connections

Add client info on another machine

Connected

Server also sees 1 connection

[collinalexbell]

Position commands are getting sent.

trim.1914FA87-7935-4012-88FE-3B8FDDBFFC33.MOV

[collinalexbell]

x11vnc + tigervnc-viewer seems to work pretty well

host

client (ignore w.e. is going on with the screenshot (dimensions may be off, idk))