Last updated: Wed Nov  3 19:48:13 CST 2010

SSGL - Super Simple Game Lobby

This code is extremely preliminary, undoubtedly buggy,
and implements a made-up and still very fluid and fluctuating
protocol and probably should not be used for any purpose at
this time.

SSGL - Super Simple Game Lobby

How do people who are scattered around the world and who want to play
some multiplayer internet game with other such people find each other?

Well, lots of times there's some "game lobby" software embedded into the
game which connects to some game lobby software running on some well known
place where people can find it, and this software allows the gamers to find
the game servers that are actually running their game.

Now, it would be nice if there could be one generic kind of game lobby that
worked for lots of different games and some libraries and what not so that
game programmers could easily hook into this game lobby system without each
one having to write their own custom network code for the game lobby.

So, that's the niche that SSGL is trying to fill.  It's a super simple
game lobby system.

There are three parts to it.  The first is the generic game lobby software.
This sits out on the internet somewhere, maybe run by you, maybe run by 
somebody else.  Your game -- both any server part of your game, and any 
client parts, can connect (using the library SSGL provides) to these generic
game lobby server(s).  The servers announce their existence and contact
info (IP addr/port) to the game lobby server.  The clients request lists of
game servers for particular types of games (or for all games)  Thus the
game players, using their clients are able to use the well known game
lobby servers to locate game-specific servers so they can connect to their
friends and play their games.

That's ALL it does.  This is a *Super Simple* game lobby system, after all.
It does not have (nor need) fancy bells and whistles like built in chat
programs, registered users, etc.

To build:

Type "make"

"ssgl_server" is the lobby server program.  It listens on tcp port 2419 for
connections from gameserver and gameclients.

"ssgl_gameserver_example" is a trivial example of a gameserver interacting
with the ssgl_server.  It registers itself and periodically re-registers
itself so as to not be dropped from the list.

"ssgl_gameclient_example" is a trivial example of a gameclient.  It queries
the lobbyserver for a list of gameservers, and and prints out what it 
receives.