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In Chapter 13, "Teaching Games to Think," you learned the bare essentials of what it takes to enable a computer opponent to present a challenge to a human player. Although AI is very important and has countless uses in games, it's hard to discount the human factor in multiplayer games. This chapter focuses on mobile multiplayer games and why they are important in today's gaming landscape. Considering that mobile phones are expressly designed as peer-to-peer communication devices, you have a great environment for mobile multiplayer games. Wireless network games bring with them their own unique set of problems and challenges that must be dealt with at the design level. This chapter exposes many of these problems and discusses various techniques for solving them. By the end of the chapter, you'll be ready to construct a mobile multiplayer game with J2ME.
In this chapter, you'll learn:
- About the raw appeal of mobile multiplayer games
- About the fundamental types of mobile multiplayer games
- About wireless network game problems and solutions
- How to use the MIDP API to carry out wireless network communications
- How to build an example program that allows you to communicate wirelessly via Morse code
- Multiplayer Game Basics
If you've been fortunate enough to play a multiplayer network game with your friends, you already know how much fun it can be. In many ways, outwitting a real person is much more fun than competing against a computer player. The reality of going head-to-head with another person can change the whole perspective of a game. I have yet to see a single-player game that evokes the same level of emotion and excitement as is generated from the human factor in multiplayer games.
There are endless possibilities for multiplayer games involving both cooperation and competition among human players. Regardless of the scenario, when real people are involved, a certain synthesis of ideas and reactions takes place that just isn't possible with computer players. It's then up to game designers like you and me to chart the course and dream up new ways for people to interact with each other through games. Now consider the uniqueness of being able to play a multiplayer game on a mobile phone over a wireless network connection from anywhere. This is what many of us have been waiting for in the "wireless revolution" we've been hearing so much about for the past few years.
Before you get into the design strategies for network games, it's important to understand the fundamental types of network games. The communication design can be affected dramatically by the way that game play progresses, which is determined by the type of game. Mobile network games can be generally broken down into two types: turn-based and event-based. Most games should easily fall into one of these two categories.
Turn-Based Games
Turn-based games are games in which each action in the game is based on a player's turn. The classic checkers, chess, and Connect 4 games are good examples of turn-based games because you are allowed to make a move only when it is your turn. Sure, you are free to think about your move during the other player's turn, but in the context of the game you can take action only during your turn.
Most turn-based games are board games or card games, or simple games played on paper such as Tic-Tac-Toe. Although they have a much slower pace than action games, turn-based games are very popular and well suited for networking.
Knowing that turn-based games revolve around whose turn it is, the network communication design is greatly simplified. Only one player can interact with the game at a time. Even though multiple players are technically playing the game, only one player is allowed to make a move at a time. The other players must wait their turns before they can do anything. In this way, the game can be designed so that all the players are in a wait state until it becomes their turn. In a two-player game such as Connect 4, the turns just move back and forth between the players.
Event-Based Games
Event-based games are games that are dictated by input events that can occur at any time. Event-based games are much more open-ended than turn-based games. In an event-based game, any player can interact with the game at any time, resulting in an input event. The flow of the game is dictated by the input events rather than turns. As a matter of fact, there is no concept of a "turn" in an event- based game. Event-based games include basically all games that don't revolve around turns; examples range from first-person shoot-em-ups such as the popular Halo and Doom series to strategy simulators such as Age of Empires. In the network modes of these games, any player can act independently of any other players, generating anywhere from no events to a massive flood of events.
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